Birdbrain

kiyobrown

Oh the hunter becomes the hunted. The irony.

BigBluePile

iTrader: (3)

JSimmons

Okay...I just want to say for the record that the previous owner of my 4Runner should never be allowed to touch the wiring/upholstery/body panels of any make of any car ever again for any reason (unless doing so will save the human race or something...).

So, what sparked all this insanity was the old CD player giving up the ghost. I got me a purdy new Alpine unit to install, and in doing so discovered the absolute nightmare of a wiring job the previous owner did. The original wiring harness has been hacked apart/spliced in so many different spots that I can't even figure out where half this stuff leads to (the wires labeled "front speakers" actually lead to the rear 6x9s). Each wire is like a new goose chase trying to figure out what it has been spliced into, or which interior panel has been hacked apart to "hide" the wiring.

on previous owner. I hex you.

Anyway...so I've now discovered that the 6x9 speakers in the second row seats were being held in with false hope over panels that look like they used a rabid gerbil to cut the holes in. So, I think the speaker pods are now looking like the way to go.

Logan - what size speakers did you put in the plumbing pipe? What diameter was the pipe? If I'm going to do this I want to try and made one trip to Home Depot or Lowes to get all the goodies. I think I may just cap the pipes and then drill a hole to port them.

BigBluePile

iTrader: (3)

It was a sewer pipe adaptor and I think those speakers were just 6".


Ah boooooooooooooo crappy hack job jackhole wire jobby....booooooooooo

JSimmons

Cool. I think I am just going to install some 6" Wal-Mart specials or something for the time being. As long as they are louder than the panel speakers I guess it should be fine for now since a 6" speaker produces far less bass than a 6x9.

BigBluePile

iTrader: (3)

They'll be better than the panel speakers. I also have the sub in the back too and that makes up for the lack of bass from the 6" speakers.

yeehaw1

Too bad I don't have a 4-runner, that's a great idea, be been looking for a way too get some speakers in the bed to use for when I'm working around the farm! I may be able to make 4 cans with 6 1/2" full range speakers stuffed in them, I may also be able to rig 2 6 1/2" subs that I have in another box into a couple more cans, then bolt it to the rollbar, wonder how that would sound?

I could probably use some crimp conectors and piggyback terminals to switch between in the cab and rollbar speakers!!

I really need to quit reading random posts on yotatech, they keep costing me money!!

BigBluePile

iTrader: (3)

lolz. My dad made a removable box with twin 6x9's that sat under the bench seat in his 1987 dodge caravan. Id take it out and put it on the roof while I was mowing lawns in the summer. Worked great!

yeehaw1

Lol, at least Im not the only person who likes music while working, at the moment I'm stuck rolling the windows down

Everything in yeehaw is removable, but most of it dosnt have very long wire. That's why I find this idea/combined with marine speakers and mounted to my rollbar to be such a great idea!!

corax

Good ideas in this thread. I was just about to start in on building a thin plywood speaker box to sandwich the rear roll bar and move the speakers higher when I decided to (gasp) SEARCH. So instead of the plywood, I decided to hit up my favorite big box store for some plumbing supplies. This is what I'm going to build off of - it's a 6" floor drain grate. The inner diameter is 5 3/8" and the outer flange diameter is 6 3/4" so a 6.5" speaker should fit perfect. Right now I'm thinking of using 2" u-bolts to hold it onto the rear bar and a piece of bent flat bar to bolt it onto the rear seat shoulder belt point. I still need to find a cheap set of speakers though so I can mock it up and make sure they fit behind the hi-lift. Until that happens, this is as far as I can go with it.


grill cut out and ready for a speaker

kiyobrown

*likes*

So many ways to go with plumbing supplies. Post up some pics when you get it all squared away!!

BigBluePile

iTrader: (3)

Yup, I just used a u-bolt and mounted it that way. Totally clears my hilift on the drivers side.

corax

this is what I came up with. All mounts are some form of 90 degree bracket. The rear and front bottom use one side of a 2" u-bolt to attach to the roll bar. The upper front uses the back side of the upper shoulder belt attachment. The speaker magnet is flush with the end of the 6" drain grate. Because there's not much room behind that and the trim, I'm leaving it as a "free air" speaker. The marine speakers I picked up have 2 sets of mounting holes, 1 set is on a smaller diameter than the other and this set matched the pipe wall itself. So I carefully predrilled the mounting holes and ran the 1.5" screws down the pipe wall (no sharp screw tips sticking out).








there's less than 1/8" between the hi-lift and the speaker grill, but it fits


now I'm just wondering if I should have pulled the speakers off the rear mini-amplifiers and connected them to the new speakers - the rear's sound better but not quite as loud as before. BTW, the head unit is pushing 52W max to these speakers (speakers rated @ 30W nominal, 160W max)

BigBluePile

iTrader: (3)

Nicely put together!! How do they sound?

corax

Thanks. They sound better than the original speakers, but my morning commute will be the real test. Right off the bat I noticed that I had to fade the speakers a bit more to the rear, so I might try making the mini-amps work with the new speakers - did you keep them in play or just run the speakers straight off the head unit?

BigBluePile

iTrader: (3)

I just unpluged the OEM self amp speakers and figured out which one was the feed from the head unit. So the head unit is powering the two OEM fronts and the pods.

corax

After my first commute I was convinced something wasn't right - the speakers sounded very "tinney" like the tweeter was on overdrive. Turns out, it was just because the speakers didn't have any kind of enclosure to muffler the sound coming off the back of the cone. So I cut a piece of lexan and screwed it to the back side with some silicone to seal it all up. Now it sounds like I expected it to - reasonable bass response with good mids and highs

BigBluePile

iTrader: (3)

Nice!

BigBluePile

iTrader: (3)

Still haven't painted them yet......lolz