The Oldsmobile Connection

Brando · Joined: 06 Jun 2003 Posts: 3067 Location: Michigan, USA

Well, so far I have my mounting rings for my fiberglass kick panel enclosure made.

Picture of one of them is in the album, HERE

Next step is to lay some fiberglass mat and resin down in the kick panel area, which will act as the base of the enclosure.

It's getting there... :lol:

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Brando

88delta88 · Joined: 09 Jun 2003 Posts: 2407 Location: Canada

starting to look good!

Brando · Joined: 06 Jun 2003 Posts: 3067 Location: Michigan, USA

Yea...now I am just debating on where I am actually going to put them...I was orginally thinking of just putting them in the kick panel area...but I thought about it, and my legs would just block the speakers then....plus it would take up a little leg room. So..either I put them down their and build them so they are low profile...or find a different location. I was just had a thought while I was in school that I might build something on the dash....you know where the 3.5" speaker and side window defroster is?
I was thinking of building them their. The two screws that are already there would hold it down (convenient, eh?) and I would need to build my own side defroster vent duct...which wouldn't be too hard...the only issue is size, not too easy to do with a 7" component set. So I might end up custom glassing some pods into the door, but again...legs become an issue....easter/spring break is coming soon, so then I'll hopefully get some warmer days to work on it.

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Brando

88delta88 · Joined: 09 Jun 2003 Posts: 2407 Location: Canada

you definately dont want them in the doors due to the door always opening and slamming?

Thats a bit of a dillemma... I eventually want to do this on my car, so, I'll keep thinking, and if I do think of anything, I'll suggest it to ya!

86Delta · Joined: 06 Nov 2003 Posts: 281 Location: NJ, USA

if you do build door pods make sure you make them strong. i had to reinforce mine after a while because the plate i mounted the speaker on seperated from the rest of the pod, but Infinity Kappa Perfect's are pretty heavy. the door pods don't intrude on leg room that much, just have to be careful getting in and out. i am 6'4" and have size 14 shoes so if i can do it just about anyone can. my suggestion is mounting the tweeter a little higher than the midrange because i put mine next to the midrange and my leg blocks it sometimes.

Brando · Joined: 06 Jun 2003 Posts: 3067 Location: Michigan, USA

Well...I decided to go with a kick panel enclosure.
The base of them is now done...kind of, gotta rip some of the tape off still.
Next is to put the mounting ring into place, and the stretch fleece over it and put a bunch of resin on it... :D
Hopefully I finish them tomorrow....
I am also going to be doing what you did 86Delta, spray some sound deadening stuff behind the tail light panel.

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Brando

88delta88 · Joined: 09 Jun 2003 Posts: 2407 Location: Canada

does that work well? I've got just this one *#%^@ing rattle in there somewhere and I cant find it!

86Delta · Joined: 06 Nov 2003 Posts: 281 Location: NJ, USA

it solved a few of my rattles, i still have a rattle in the trunk lock area that i am not sure how to get rid of. i have 2 layers of dynamat extreme on my lisence plate and i siliconed it to the back of the car, so that isn't a problem anymore.

88delta88 · Joined: 09 Jun 2003 Posts: 2407 Location: Canada

my cousin is a bass enthusiast, and he goes to the extreme to kill his rattles... He airplane cable'd his trunk shut in 4 places, replaced his sunroof with plywood, anything that didnt need to be there he took out. This is his daily driver by the way, and the car looks **horrible** -but everything regarding his stereo is done very nicely...

His car doesnt rattle anything except house windows and the guy's rear view mirror in the car ahead of you. I would never want a car with that much bass power, he's only got bass. I can actually listen to real music in my car.

86Delta · Joined: 06 Nov 2003 Posts: 281 Location: NJ, USA

i'm not too much of a bass head, my focus is still sound quality. but you have to love it when your vision gets blurry and the hairs on the back of you neck stand up when the bass hits.

strokercutlass · Joined: 09 Jun 2003 Posts: 379 Location: Wis

thats why you build a powerhouse stereo in a 4200 lb station wagon...room to spare, and no rattles!!!! :lol: I like bass as well as SQ, and have setup my system to be able to do both pretty well....you can crank the stereo up, and when you're outside the car you can hardly hear it, due to the dampening of 34 year old sheetmetal..gotta love it!!!! :twisted:

Brando · Joined: 06 Jun 2003 Posts: 3067 Location: Michigan, USA

Haha!
Yea...stroker...I bet you vista is pretty sweet! :shock:
Did you install the Crunch DS-VU yet?

Update on kick panels:
I got the mounting rings mounted to the fiberglass bases....that was a lot harder then it seems....it took many hours...I at first tried cutting wooden dowls to size and hot glueing them in to keep the mounting ring in place, but it kept falling apart. So what to do...well...I started walking in circles (that helped) thinking...and I came up with an idea...I used some pipe hanger (metal strip stuff) and cut it to 9 holes. I made two pieces...for both mounting rings of course. I then proceeded to mounting these pipe hanger strips to the mounting rings with one small screw each (in between the tweeter and woofer hole). After that, I mounted the pipe hangers strips to the fiberglass base with one small screw each. Once this was done...it made it a lot easier to mount those bitches...or so I thought. So I finally got those mounted to the fiberglass base. I currently just got done with re-fiberglassing all around one of them. Yes....re-fiberglassing. So...I got it all glassed, stretched the fiberglass cloth around it good....hot glued it down, and brushed a bunch of the fiberglass resin mix on to it. I went inside while it was drying...about 30 minutes...come back and it's dry, but one problem....one of the wooden dowels that I had glued into place...was no longer glued into place :shock:
It collapsed the woofer part down....luckily I had my Black & Decker dremel copy cat by my side....had to cut the fiberglass around the woofer part of the mounting ring off, pulled the old wooden dowel out....made a new one...and basically jacked the mounting ring up so the woofer wasn't hitting the base anymore. Well...I just went outside to look at the result after re-fiberglassing it...and it looks good....pretty strong, I only used one layer of fiberglass cloth too...I think that's all I'll do, added bondo (and sanding down) and spray sound deadener inside will make it even stronger! So far everything is going wrong....but at least I'm not giving up (even though I felt like it) and I'm fixing my mistakes pretty good.

Damn I was pissed though when it collapsed.... :evil:
I said..... "OH SHIT!"...quickly ran to my car to see if it might still work, and nope....woofer didn't fit....but now it fits just fine, along with the tweeter. I'll be doing the other one tomorrow....er...today. Wish me luck! :D
I'll need it! :lol:

Oh yea...and if you're thinking of fiberglassing....make sure you have plenty of time to do it! This ain't no walk in the park! :)

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Brando

Brando · Joined: 06 Jun 2003 Posts: 3067 Location: Michigan, USA

Damn...that was a long rant above...oh yea...
I might add when I first started fiberglassing the bases, my mom came out and said what are you doing...I showed her (I hadn't told her I was making kick panels :lol: )

Then she said, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THIS CAR!?!"
LMAO....she must of thought that it was permanently in there or something...I assured her everything would be just A.O.K. :o

Well...I haven't told her yet...but I SOMEHOW got a little fiberglass resin on my passenger side floor mat. Luckily it's not the floor carpet and just the mat....and it's only a couple drops....hopefully I can crack the resin off. Or I might just get some new mats....I'm still wondering how these two drops got through though....I put two layers of masking tape down, a layer of aluminum foil, and plastic all around so no drips would get on the carpet....it's......MAGIC! :shock: Black Magic.... :twisted:

:roll:

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Brando

P.S. My system is greatly aimed toward Sound Quality....and DAMN it sounds good. On easter Sunday I showed my brother and uncle the system....I had just finished the trunk...and I had the components hooked up front in the mounting rings....just lying there....and it sounded FUCKING GREAT! :D These DEI Viper components are the SHIT! :yes:

Brando · Joined: 06 Jun 2003 Posts: 3067 Location: Michigan, USA

Oh yea...I also sprayed some 3M Rubberized Undercoating/Sound Deadening stuff behind the tail light panel...cleaned it up the day before, nothing pretty to look at but hopefully it fixes some rattles back there...also...my license plate was only using two holes...so I drilled a couple more, and wallah! 4 screws holding that thing in place nice and tight. I also realized the tail light panel is made of some kind of plastic eurythane (sp?), fiberglass or something....also one of the reasons why it's one of the few things that's not rusting!

That's another project, fixing my damn rust spots....I might end up just replace panels...or I might sand em' down and do the bondo work to even the layers out...what do you think? How do I take a door skin off of a door? Or would I have to replace the whole door? Which I was actually thinking of doing...since my car doesn't have power windows and locks...just find a delta 88 and take it's doors! :D

Spring Break is great....most people go to Cancun or some exotic place and party their asses off, while I take advantage of the beautiful 60 degree weather in Michigan and work on my car.... :lol:

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Brando

Signing off.... :)

88delta88 · Joined: 09 Jun 2003 Posts: 2407 Location: Canada

Brando... Sounds cool allright, thats great that you wouldnt give up even though you wanted to... Its all good in the end! Dont forget to keep snapping pictures along the way, I really want to build some of those aswell!