A place to put things (and something about more speakers...)

It may baffle those of you who are new here, but the 1800 has no glove box. That means no place to put your registration, pens, used bendy straws, maps, nothing! It's like the people who built these cars and the people who run Ikea stay on opposite signs of some Line of Storage and never the two shall meet.

License and registration, please.

Oh well. Let's finish up the sound system. That way when we get back to the important stuff, we'll have something to listen to. When we last left our intrepid hero, it just had a pair of speakers installed in a custom-built rear shelf. Excellent craftsmanship I say, as long as you don't look too closely... or better yet just don't look at all. Just listen. And feel.

Building More Boom

First, pick out some speakers. Easy breezy. I went with JL Audio TR650-CSi 6.5" component speakers. They're a good match to my rear speakers, decent size, and they don't break the bank. Plus, look at that classic black mesh grille!

It looks like I neglected to take any pictures of the design process with the cutting out of the baffle boards. Sorry, maybe if you guys increased my salary you wouldn't get such shoddy reporting. Measure and cut the speaker openings out of the same 5/8" MDF used for the rear shelf. I didn't simply want speaker boxes, I also needed a spot to put stuff. Y'know, like pencils and wads of fifties.

All this and I still suck at wrapping presents...

The speaker boxes are basically a baffle board with a post across the middle to act as a map shelf. The shelf angles down toward the front, giving clearance for the tweeter and making sure items placed on it don't slide off the back from the wicked acceleration out of the 110 ish horsepower 1.8 liter dual-carb inline four.

Wrap it up already, we've got things to do!

Mounting speakers is not difficult once the holes are cut. Place speaker in hole, insert screws, put on the grille. Don't forget the grille. These are kick panel speakers. They are gonna get kicked. I attached these to the kick panels with some two dozen brads from the brad nailer. It's not the right way to do it. The right way would have been to make a fiberglass form. Fiberglass is for sissies.

I model all my best work on the dolphin sheets, 'cause that's where the magic happens.

Play time is over guys, let's get back to fixing the broken stuff.