Topic
JBL 609C Speakers Install 4 years 8 months ago #191081
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Topic Author
- kpainter65
- Offline
- Journeyman MGer
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- Posts: 53
- Thanks: 5
Hi everyone,
This isn't really a "how to", it's just my experience installing the above component speakers and I’m sorry, but some pictures are missing because I only thought about taking pictures and uploading when I was nearly finished.
Last Christmas I bought a Chinese head unit with pop out screen and in the meantime I installed a rear camera for reversing, a front camera in case of accidents and a Kenwood SW 11 powered woofer that is hidden under the passenger seat. I didn't go for a separate powered amp because I just didn't see the point in such a small cabin, and let’s say I love music when I’m driving but I’m not a pedant.
The mid-range/bass speakers, although 165mm are very different than the stock, so I decided to scrap the old holders and use MDF rings instead, by chance I saw these for sale for the Rover 200 and Rover 25, x 18mm high
I was amazed that I could buy anything for a Rover here in CZ. Initial trials showed that these lined up exactly with the mounting holes on the door,
so far so good.
I drilled the 4 mounting holes and countersunk the rear to take the nuts, initially 4 x 25 and then measured them against the old speakers and the door card, hmmm it looked a really tight fit. Knowing there was acres of space behind the door I decided to skim 5mm off the ring using my pillar drill and an old rotary cutter,
taking off about 1.5 mm each skim, it worked a treat and I now had 13mm high rings. I re-fixed the speakers to the rings (4 x 20 screws) with a draft excluder gasket and made a trial fit – the speaker grills were off (they had been replaced with crappy new ones and I managed to buy a pair of original grills which were destined to be fitted), so I re-installed the door card to check the clearance, this time, just about perfect.
I now locked the nuts at the back of the ring with high strength epoxy glue. Speaker mounted after trimming
The tweeters were interesting because they come with an adjustable cradle to change the angle of the tweeter to improve the “sweet spot” but I wanted to keep the original tweeter ring. After experimenting I worked out how to take the original tweeters out of the ring – there is a tiny cut out in the lip at the front of the ring, and if you rotate the tweeter to line up the cut out with the matching part on the tweeter, after a bit of faffing about, the tweeter comes out from the ring.
Using a Dremel type rotary drum sander mounted in the pillar drill I took off the approx. 1mm x 1mm lip quite easily from the ring, and by a miracle the JBL fitted perfectly, but a tiny bit loose. I didn’t want to glue it in place at this stage, so I wrapped loads of plumbers PTFE tape round and round the JBL tweeter holder until the tweeter was a nice tight fit in the original ring, but still adjustable.
Rear view of the tweeter mounted in the original ring, showing the PTFE tape
They are adjustable in the vertical and horizontal axis.
Next came the crossovers, ridiculously big for what they do, they would have worked if they had been one third of the size, but wouldn’t have looked so interesting in the cab of a Ford 150. Firstly I removed the top cover and glued nuts over the mounting holes so that they could be fixed to the door. I then reversed the large button that changes 0db to + 2db gain (this can always be done in the head unit if needed but I read that the JBL tweeters are quite bright), chopped off a bit of plastic, and glued the button back. I then covered most of the crossover with “carpet” to remove the risk of buzzing – this was a nylon based covering for speaker cabs.
I read that just covering the area behind and around the speaker with panel damping material was 75% improvement compared with covering the whole of the outside and inside door skins, so being practical, this is what I did. I also covered the damping material on the outside door skin with the same carpet material to reduce reflections.
Getting the crossovers to fit in the door was a pain but eventually I found a place just to the left or right (depending on which door) and the crossover fitted at an angle of about 45 degrees going down to the bottom of the door. You need to pop one cable tie next to the speaker opening so that you can push the wiring loom towards the outside of the door and the crossover fits behind the loom towards the inside of the door. In the end I only used one screw to hold it to the inner door skin.
Using the meter it was easy to check which wires were from the head unit and which were to the old tweeter, these wires were cut off.
So that’s it really, there is a huge improvement in the sound, especially the “sweet spot” and I reduced the bass to the door speakers because the woofer can take the strain of heavy bass notes, and and everything looks original.
I’m very pleased with the result especially considering the noise from the TT Mk 7 exhaust.
This isn't really a "how to", it's just my experience installing the above component speakers and I’m sorry, but some pictures are missing because I only thought about taking pictures and uploading when I was nearly finished.
Last Christmas I bought a Chinese head unit with pop out screen and in the meantime I installed a rear camera for reversing, a front camera in case of accidents and a Kenwood SW 11 powered woofer that is hidden under the passenger seat. I didn't go for a separate powered amp because I just didn't see the point in such a small cabin, and let’s say I love music when I’m driving but I’m not a pedant.
The mid-range/bass speakers, although 165mm are very different than the stock, so I decided to scrap the old holders and use MDF rings instead, by chance I saw these for sale for the Rover 200 and Rover 25, x 18mm high
I drilled the 4 mounting holes and countersunk the rear to take the nuts, initially 4 x 25 and then measured them against the old speakers and the door card, hmmm it looked a really tight fit. Knowing there was acres of space behind the door I decided to skim 5mm off the ring using my pillar drill and an old rotary cutter,
I now locked the nuts at the back of the ring with high strength epoxy glue. Speaker mounted after trimming
The tweeters were interesting because they come with an adjustable cradle to change the angle of the tweeter to improve the “sweet spot” but I wanted to keep the original tweeter ring. After experimenting I worked out how to take the original tweeters out of the ring – there is a tiny cut out in the lip at the front of the ring, and if you rotate the tweeter to line up the cut out with the matching part on the tweeter, after a bit of faffing about, the tweeter comes out from the ring.
Using a Dremel type rotary drum sander mounted in the pillar drill I took off the approx. 1mm x 1mm lip quite easily from the ring, and by a miracle the JBL fitted perfectly, but a tiny bit loose. I didn’t want to glue it in place at this stage, so I wrapped loads of plumbers PTFE tape round and round the JBL tweeter holder until the tweeter was a nice tight fit in the original ring, but still adjustable.
Next came the crossovers, ridiculously big for what they do, they would have worked if they had been one third of the size, but wouldn’t have looked so interesting in the cab of a Ford 150. Firstly I removed the top cover and glued nuts over the mounting holes so that they could be fixed to the door. I then reversed the large button that changes 0db to + 2db gain (this can always be done in the head unit if needed but I read that the JBL tweeters are quite bright), chopped off a bit of plastic, and glued the button back. I then covered most of the crossover with “carpet” to remove the risk of buzzing – this was a nylon based covering for speaker cabs.
I read that just covering the area behind and around the speaker with panel damping material was 75% improvement compared with covering the whole of the outside and inside door skins, so being practical, this is what I did. I also covered the damping material on the outside door skin with the same carpet material to reduce reflections.
Getting the crossovers to fit in the door was a pain but eventually I found a place just to the left or right (depending on which door) and the crossover fitted at an angle of about 45 degrees going down to the bottom of the door. You need to pop one cable tie next to the speaker opening so that you can push the wiring loom towards the outside of the door and the crossover fits behind the loom towards the inside of the door. In the end I only used one screw to hold it to the inner door skin.
Using the meter it was easy to check which wires were from the head unit and which were to the old tweeter, these wires were cut off.
So that’s it really, there is a huge improvement in the sound, especially the “sweet spot” and I reduced the bass to the door speakers because the woofer can take the strain of heavy bass notes, and and everything looks original.
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