Sound System Install

[usapatriot]

Did you have to pry the door panel off or does it come off easily once you get all the screws out?

[newmission]

How about wiring? What's positive and what's negative? ;)

[Tony407]

Originally Posted by newmission

How about wiring? What's positive and what's negative? ;)

I can get these for you later, if no one else has them handy...

Tony

[mattlqx]

Originally Posted by newmission

How about wiring? What's positive and what's negative? ;)

I just used a multi-meter to check...

Fronts are easy on the mids: stripe = negative. Didn't use the tweeter wires.
The back from what I remember green = negative.

This is on a non-Sony 6 speaker setup btw.

[mattlqx]

Originally Posted by usapatriot

Did you have to pry the door panel off or does it come off easily once you get all the screws out?

There's a lot of plastic snap rivets, particularly toward the bottom of the door. It required a good bit of force straight out to get off, but there's nothing fancy holding it in once you get all the torx screws out.

[Tony407]

I finally got around to doing the passenger door and took a whole bunch more pics. Sorry for the delay in answering everyone's questions about the door panels. This should fix that!

I began by removing the tweeter pod. There's a couple of plastic clips holding it to the door and the entire assembly can then be removed. The other side of the assembly (to the right of the tweeter) is held onto the door panel with some hooks but I found it easy to jiggle around until I was able pull it straight away from the door.


Here's the back side of the tweeter pod assembly and where the clips attach to the door:


I removed the trim below the door controls/handle, starting from the front and working my way back. It then pulls forward and come out very easily.


The control model is removed in opposite order. I pried the rear end up and slid it backwards to remove it.


There's two torx screws behind it that need to come out. (All the door screws are T-25 torx bit.)


This little panel on the edge of the door needs to come off and there's another torx screw behind it (the screw should be silver, not black as shown).


The reflector comes off by prying the front edge up and then pushing it backwards. There's another screw underneath.


I found this to be the most difficult part of the panel removal process, mostly because I wasn't sure how to get this little sucker off to get to the screw underneath. What I eventually learned is that by pressing the front of the cover (where the red circle is) it partially raises the opposite end (red arrow). It's not exactly easy, but once I was able to get the other end to raise up enough I got the tip of a knife under there and pried it off. Definitely trial and error my first time. Much easier once I figured it out.

[Tony407]

I used this tool to pry the door panel away from the door. This is 1 of 6 plastic clips that hold the panel to the door.


Here's the location of the 6 clips as seen on the rear of the door panel:


And here's the holes they snap into in the door:


Once all 6 snaps are pulled free the panel should be able to be pulled away from the door. But first this plug behind the panel needs to be disconnected:


Also, This is the door lever as seen from behind the door panel. The small connector (yellow arrow) needs to be disconnected. The red arrows are pointing to some hooks that need to pushed in so you can pull the entire lever assembly out. I just left it dangling against the door panel as it wasn't in my way.

[Tony407]

Here's a closer look at the tweeter pod assembly. It comes apart into 2 pieces.


The Sony mid mounted to the door:


The stock mounting ring. I did not re-use it.


The Scosche mounting ring I used:


JL provided a cardboard ring I used to trace along the inside so I could cut out the mounting hole for the new JL 6.5 mid.


Here's the ring after I enlarged the mounting hole:

[Tony407]

This picture shows the mounting depth from the sheet metal at the top of the mid-woofer cut-out in the door. It measures about 3.5 inches.


And this is the mounting depth from the bottom of the hole. About 3 inches. Keep in mind that by using the mounting ring I did, I gave myself about another inch of clearance. The JL mid's mounting depth is 2.65 inches, so even without the mounting ring I used I would still have had room.


Here's another look at the cut-out in the door. The black window track on the right side shouldn't get in the way of most speaker magnets. When centered on the cut-out, the JL mid's magnet didn't even come close to it. Plenty of room.


Here's are the holes I used to mount the mid to the door. The red arrows point to holes that were already there and they just happened to line up perfectly with the mid and mounting ring so I used them. I drilled a third hole (yellow arrow) into the door for another. I was not able to use a top (fourth) hole because the size of the cut-out was too large. But with the 3 screws I did use, the mid was securely attached and there was no need for a fourth.


Here's the Sony mid mounted to the door. The silver screws you see are what is holding the speaker to the door. The black screws are what is holding the speaker to the mounting ring. Note the absence of a screw in the uppermost hole.


Here's the finished product. As before, the door had a perfect cubby for the crossover. How cool is that? I'm telling you, that just never happens. Since the Sony amp (or crossover) sends separate wires to the Sony mid and tweeter, I just used them to wire the JL crossover in bi-amp mode sending the tweeter wire to the tweeter input and the mid wire to the mid input on the JL crossover. I then ran wires from the crossover to the JL mid and tweet. Once I get my AudioControl LCQ-1 and use an aftermarket amp I will have to modify the wiring just a bit but that shouldn't be a problem.

[Tony407]

Here's a picture of the Sony mid and its connector. Notice how both wires are black, hence no visible distinction between positive and negative. But I did mark the polarity:


Here's the back of the Sony mid. This is one way to see which black wire was positive and negative. The other test (which I used to confirm polarity) is called the "pop" test. Take a AA battery and connect short leads of speaker wire to each end. Take the wire from the positive end of the battery and hook it up to the positive terminal of the speaker in question (if not known, just choose one). Briefly touch the wire hooked up to the negative end of the battery to the negative terminal (or other terminal, if not known) of the speaker. If you have them correctly hooked up (i.e., positive to positive and negative to negative) the speaker cone should "pop" outwards towards you when looking at the front of the speaker. If it "pops" inward, then the polarity is reversed. I used this process to confirm the proper polarity of both the mids and tweeters, just to be sure Sony had them marked correctly. You can do the same with subs, but you might have to use a 9 volt battery if a AA doesn't have enough juice to get the cone to move.


Here's the back side of the passenger tweeter. The positive wire is the green one with the orange stripe:


I already did the driver's side speakers earlier in this thread but failed to take photos of the wires. The woofer wires on the driver's side are the same as the passenger side, they're both black. But here's a pic of the driver's side tweeter. The positive wire is the purple one with the orange-ish stripe.