Finished!

[AustinKP]

Here's the door to start with:


Next, I made some MDF rings and pointed the speakers where I wanted them, then glued the rings in place:

Next, stretch some lightweight fleece where you want your enclosure to be. Do this with as few wrinkles as possible to make for less sanding later. It's usually possible to stretch it so it's totally smooth. In my case, I wanted my enclosure to follow the top line where the factory grill was, so I got some heavy cord (the yellow stuff) and used a screwdriver to shove it in place. I then trimmed the extra fleece around the top and used a hot glue gun to attach the bottom of the fleece to the back of the door panel:

Once you have your fleece stretched and glued to the desired shape, it's time to apply some fiberglass resin to harden it:

After the resin has cured on the fleece, the shape is set and you are ready to lay up the actual fiberglass mat. I did about 3 coats of fiberglass mat to make sure it is strong:

After that's dry, if you want to save yourself an hour's worth of sanding, apply an extra filler layer of resin on top to smooth everything out:

Once all the resin has dried, your enclosure is very strong. You could stand on this thing and it wouldn't budge. Now comes the fun part...start sanding for about 3 years until it's as smooth as a baby's bottom. For any dips you can't get out, add some auto body filler like Bondo:

Let that dry and sand for another decade. Finally, you'll get a totally smooth surface:

[AustinKP]

To paint these bad boys, I chose an aerosol-based paint similar to Rhino-liner. This stuff is great for 3 reasons. First, it has a rubbery texture that makes a perfect seal against my speakers once they're installed. Second, it has sound dampening properties to absorb any stray vibrations. Third, it's very durable so it won't get all beat up. It's best to apply in thin coats. I did about 5 coats total:

Once dry, I test fit to make sure everything's still ok

To attach the speaker to the MDF ring tightly, without fear of breaking out the wood, I got what are called T-nuts. I didn't get a picture, but it's kinda like a threaded washer with teeth that sink into the wood on the back side of the enclosure, so you don't have to try to hold a nut on the back side while you screw in a screw. It holds very tightly, plus you can unscrew the screws to remove the speaker or grill as many times as you need without stripping out the wood. Here's the finished product before I put it back in my car.

I finished at 3am this morning, so I don't have pictures of it in my car yet, but hopefully I'll have time to take a couple tomorrow.
Let me know what you think and if I explained everything clearly.
-Austin

[AustinKP]

After a couple of hours of listening time, I'm a first-hand witness that the install makes a ton of difference in how speakers sound. The midbass response has much improved, and my soundstage is a lot higher with better imaging and positioning. This project was pretty time-consuming, but fairly easy to do. I'm not extremely construction-inclined, but I think it turned out pretty well, especially considering that this is my first time ever making something with fiberglass. If you guys are considering it, but thought that it would be just too difficult or expensive, it's time to reconsider. If I can do this, ANYONE can do it. :D
-Austin

[audiobliss]

Man, that is awesome!! Congratulations!! It really looks great. Very good report on how the process goes overall. I was *wanting* to do something like this in the future but wasn't sure if I would. After reading that and seeing how well it turned out, I don't see why I wouldln't.

Great job!!

Oh, how did you decide how to angle the mids? Are they aimed up? Or are they both aimed at your head?

[MacLeod]

Dude! Good for you. I think youre the first one of us brave enough to glass your install.

Very cool on the angling of the speaker.

How are you going to get it to match the color of the rest of your door skin?

Look good bro!

[AustinKP]

Originally posted by audiobliss
Oh, how did you decide how to angle the mids? Are they aimed up? Or are they both aimed at your head?

They are aimed approximately at the headrest of the opposite seat, i.e. Driver door aimed at passenger seat headrest and vice versa. I can't stress how much better the imaging and soundstage are this way compared to having them in the stock locations :)

Originally posted by MacLeod
How are you going to get it to match the color of the rest of your door skin?

What's great is that I don't have to. The rhino liner matches the carpet and upper dash just perfectly. Plus, the grain of the spray even matches everything else. I couldn't have picked a better paint choice. If you choose to do it, you can get a non-aerosol bedliner and the paint store can color match it to any color you want for like $10.

Here's the final pictures of the panels put back in my car. All I have left to do is paint on the 1.5 gallons of SecondSkin spectrum I have left. I'll do somewhere around 1/3 gallon on each door, and put the rest in the trunk on top of what I already have. Once that Koda 12 comes out, I'll be set! :D

I still need to vacuum and armor-all the door panels, but here's where I'm at currently:





And here you can see the top of the dash where it's also dark gray so it all fits together. Sorry the color is all washed out. It was really bright outside.

[exalted512]

wow, thats looks extremely good!! have you thought about putting that spray on your kick panels too? from your pictures it looks like it would make your theme flow better. i hope my a-pillars come out looking half as good as that! then ill be set...lol. i came into contact with some more money today so well see how much i have left b/c i have yet to do christmas shopping:( but my iridiums will get here tuesday. ive all but decided to fiberglass the bottom of my box...i wont have to worry about sanding that...lol. the only thing i will be doing different than you is the spray, ill be using SEM texture coat which will give it the same kind of texture as the rest of the vehicle, then paint it the same tan color of my truck. but again, that looks fantastic, very well done.
-Cody

[MacLeod]

That is so cool youre getting Iridiums.

I cant wait to get your reviews!

[exalted512]

i cant wait to get them...im going to have to stare at them for up to a couple weeks before i can even install them!!! i think im going to do my box first so i can have a little fiberglassing experience before i try to tackle my a-pillars...
-Cody

[AustinKP]

Originally posted by exalted512
wow, thats looks extremely good!! have you thought about putting that spray on your kick panels too? from your pictures it looks like it would make your theme flow better. i hope my a-pillars come out looking half as good as that! then ill be set...lol.

That's an excellent idea. I'll look into that and see if I can think of a way to make the spray stick to the plastic. I agree that it would probably flow better. The a-pillars were a piece of cake. That little piece came stock with the car. All I did is drill a hole for the wires and screw it into place. I was thinking about fiberglassing them as well, just to be able to angle them a little better, but ran out of resin and don't want to buy any more right now.

Thanks for all the compliments guys. Keep 'em comin'... you're making me feel important :p

[exalted512]

as far as more compliments go, i think youve run out of forum members...lol
-Cody

[audiobliss]

Originally posted by exalted512
as far as more compliments go, i think youve run out of forum members...lol
-Cody

ROFL.....:D :p

Man, that is really inspiring. Great job!!


(OK, now everybody else give compliments once more....:p )

[VR3]

Those look AWESOME man...

Once you clean up the door etc, it will look like a professional job, 100% - awesome...

I could NEVER do that! lol - Congrats, bet it sounds great!

[Joelsbass]

Beautiful work Austin, i'm planin on doing pretty much the same thing this summer to bring my soundstage up and I got some good ideas from this...

[geolemon]

Originally posted by exalted512
as far as more compliments go, i think youve run out of forum members...lol
-Cody

Nah, I don't think so. :D

That's a great job!
It's really tough to mask an area like you did, and work around it - sanding and all - without scratching something outside your work area, or leaving something sloppy near the taped off border. Looks great! ;)

I know you've improved your midbass... but I'm just curious what kind of a seal exists between your plastic door panel (to which the speaker is now mounted), and the metal structure of the door (where the speaker used to be mounted, right?).

Because if there really isn't much of one... you might find you can further improve your midbass by facilitating a better seal, if nothing else, along the front and bottom edges of the door panel - maybe some of the $0.99 speaker gasketing sealing caulk they sell in little rolled ropes at www.partsexpress.com?

Just an idea.

[AustinKP]

Originally posted by geolemon
It's really tough to mask an area like you did, and work around it - sanding and all - without scratching something outside your work area, or leaving something sloppy near the taped off border. Looks great! ;)

that comes from spending literally hours with a dremel... ugh :)
Also, on the second one I did, I just left the tape in place while I was sanding the edges so I'd just scratch the tape and not the plastic panel. Seemed to work pretty well.

Originally posted by geolemon
I know you've improved your midbass... but I'm just curious what kind of a seal exists between your plastic door panel (to which the speaker is now mounted), and the metal structure of the door (where the speaker used to be mounted, right?).

there isn't really a seal between the door panel and the door frame. I can't really seal it with caulk though, or I wouldn't be able to remove the panel. Maybe you're talking about something else?

[swerve]

that's extremely tight.... danm great job!!

-adam

[MacLeod]

Geo, where the hell you been man? You should check in more often. Can never have to much expert opinions! ;)

[exalted512]

my guess is he saw the link Austin posted on caraudiotalk and followed it here and posted ;)
-Cody

[MacLeod]

Oh well, I guess Ill have to settle for being the only expert here!

Huh? Who said that? :p :p

[exalted512]

does anyone else smell that?

[Joelsbass]

smells vaguely reminiscent of a cattle farm :p

[MacLeod]

Better put on them boots boys! :D

[spwuinmk67]

Looks great Austin, nice job.