Door Speaker Upgrade

[johnny01]

Hi everyone :)

Welcome to the third in a series of speaker upgrades, this one is for the doors and involves replacing the standard 5.25" Speakers with 6.5" ones, using the Autoleads adaptor - part number SAK-2914.

The topic is split into 2 parts (part 2 underneath this one) because the pictures don't show up if there are more than 10 in a post. I apologise in advance for a long thread!

NOTE: When working on the door Speakers, the ignition should be OFF and the windows should be UP!

Removal of Door Card

Fairly easy though a little nerve-wracking for anyone who have never removed a door card! Firstly unscrew the 2 screws located one in the door pull and the other behind the door release lever, then lift out the plastic door pull - the thing that looks like an ashtray that you use to close the door with:

Open the door and you will see 2 plastic 'screws' in the part where the door meets the dashboard, turn these gently a quarter turn anti-clockwise and then pull them out with your fingers. They are only little plastic pop-in clips. Put them in the 'door pull' you removed, to keep them safe.

Then with your finger pull on the top of the small black triangle that hides the mirror mounting, it comes off very easily:

Here comes the nerve-wracking part! Pull fairly hard and swift in the door pocket to pop out the bottom of the door card, then proceed to work around the bottom edge and sides of the door card to pop out all the plastic press studs:

Once the door card is loose, pull it towards you so that it clears the door release lever and lift it upwards - it is held in place by the window sill rubbers. When it is completely free, rest the bottom of the door card on your feet (to stop any damage to it) and unclip the wiring connector for the electric windows. Move the door card out of the way to avoid potential damage. The rear of the door card looks like this; showing the 8 (red) press studs along the bottom and sides:

This is a view of the inside of the door without the door card, showing the speaker:

Removing the original speaker

Unplug the wiring connector from the top of the speaker and move the wire out of the way. The speaker is riveted in place so these need to be drilled out. Using a 4.5mm or 5mm drill bit, carefully drill out the rivets. There is plenty of room behind the door panel so you won't do any damage when you break through them (you did remember to wind the window UP of course)

Once all 3 rivets have been drilled through, carefully remove the original speaker from the door. It should come away easily. Using a small brush poked down into the bottom of the door, any bits of drilled rivets can be manoeuvred through a handy drain hole, positioned right underneath the speaker hole. This avoids the possibility of any annoying rattles when you turn the bass up! You will have a hole like this:

Second part below...

[johnny01]

The second part

Fitting the new Speakers

Because the original speaker has its connector at the top/front of it (see picture 5 in part 1 above) and most upgrade Speakers have connections at the back, I filed out a small channel in the Autoleads adaptor to feed the wires from the back of the speaker through to the front.

But first! Hold the empty adaptor up to the door and rotate it so that it is in the right position because...

the 3 holes in the door are not equidistant - the adaptor will only fit one way round!

File the small wiring channel at the top of the adaptor because the wires feeding the speaker have no extra length to them. The top is where you need your wires to appear!

Attach the gasket supplied with the speaker to the speaker, then making sure the terminals of the speaker are near to the hole you filed, screw the speaker to the Autoleads adaptor using the screws supplied with the adaptor. Wire the Autoleads connector to the terminals on the rear of the speaker and feed them through the filed hole. You should have something looking like this:

Maximum speaker mounting depth

This is something that is so difficult to measure because of the curvature of the window.

The original speaker has a mounting depth of 26mm

The Autoleads adaptor adds a further 22mm to this

Giving a problem free mounting depth of 48mm.

Out of interest I measured the depth to the window glass (with the window down) from the door surface as 36mm, assuming a speaker magnet of about 65mm diameter. That gives a 'window touching' maximum depth of 58mm, which just about rules out all 'non-slimline' Speakers unless the Autoleads adaptor is spaced further out from the door using MDF or similar. I am not going to cover that method here though.

I used the slimline version of the same 'series' of speakers I have fitted to the rest of the car - this had a mounting depth of about 15mm less than the standard version. The following picture shows a comparison between the mounting depths of the original Toyota speaker and the upgrade speaker in its Autoleads adaptor. The upgrade is actually 4mm shallower behind the door:

Fitting the upgrade speakers

First thing to do is check that the speaker works. Plug it into the original wiring connector on the door and play a few seconds of music to verify it's OK. Then offer the speaker up to the door panel and insert new rivets with washers through the mounting holes. I used 5mm diameter aluminium rivets of 7mm length, and aluminium rivet washers to match the 5mm rivets - both readily available from your local DIY store. 'Squeezing' each rivet so it's half secure makes it easier to line up the adaptor properly and also stops it falling out:

Then finally apply full pressure on the rivet gun to pop the rivet in place. Do this for all 3 rivets. Or you could use self tapping screws but they would need to be fairly large diameter - at least a No.10 size if not No.12, and short too - remember you only have about 20mm behind the door panel before you potentially hit the window glass. If you use screws, it might be a good idea to use shake-proof washers too.

Here's the speaker riveted in place, detailing the hole where the wiring appears at the top of the adaptor:

Once you have reached this stage, to finish it off 'properly' I would recommend sealing any small gaps between the door and the Autoleads adaptor, and also where the wires appear through the hole. Any proprietory 'kitchen and bathroom' or silicone sealant will do the trick, just run a bead around the circumference of the adaptor and smooth it off if necessary. No-one will see it anyway so it doesn't have to be a concourse finish:

Smear a blob of sealant on the connector whilst you're at it to stop it potentially rattling against the door panel.

Refitting the door card

Refitting the door card is straightforward, there are however 3 things to bear in mind:

1) Remember to re-connect the wire to your electric window control,

2) Try to avoid damage to the speaker as you locate the door card, and

3) Try to avoid getting 'kitchen and bathroom' sealant all over the place!

Fit the door card in the reverse order of removal - tilt it towards you and make sure the little 'pop up' door lock/unlock tab is fed through the hole (that's the thing no-one ever uses any more, at the far end of the door) and then slot the window rubbers down into the door until they click into place, then press on the side and bottom edges of the door card to locate the 8 red press studs (see picture 4 in part 1 above.)

Then pop back in the little black triangle where the mirror is, push in the 2 plastic pop-in 'screws' at the dashboard end of the door, and finally re-fit the plastic 'door pull' and tighten the screws in this and behind the door release catch.

And that's it! Now go do the other side, it will take you half the time

Regards - Johnny

[ClydeVella]

Hi! I had taken my TS to have the Speakers done at a car audio shop. Long story short now the whole door is rattling when a little bass goes through the Speakers.

I'm sure the Speakers themselves aren't damaged, they did this from the moment they were installed.

I also have to mention that when the windows are winded down (electrically), they slightly touch(scratching sound) with the back of the speakers. Speakers are: Pioneer TS-E1796

http://caraudiosecurity.com/shop/product/p...ts_id/2502.html

Would you know why this would happen? The rattling is so bad that I've faded all the sound to the rear 6x9 speakers. What can I do?

Thanks,

Clyde

[johnny01]

I also have to mention that when the windows are winded down (electrically), they slightly touch(scratching sound) with the back of the speakers. Speakers are: Pioneer TS-E1796

Would you know why this would happen? The rattling is so bad that I've faded all the sound to the rear 6x9 speakers. What can I do?

Pioneer TS-E1796 - awesome Speakers - but have a mounting depth of 66mm so it's no wonder they are touching the window. Depends on the method of mounting though. As for rattles that sounds like poor installation, and could be related to some attempt to reduce the mounting depth by adding spacers etc.

You should / should have taken the car back straight after installation to get them to rectify it or at least give some kind of plausible explanation. Difficult to say - your car needs to go back to the shop or strip down the door as above and check for loose things.

[ClydeVella]

Exactly. They tried spacers. First time i took it they tried metal spacers, much worse rattling.

I took it back and they fitted rubber ones, and the rattling kept on. They said it was something from the door, I was ****** off and left. I'm not going back there... Anyways it would be fixable (by another shop :) )??

thanks alot for the quick reply

[johnny01]

Anything is fixable if you have the time and/or money and can isolate what it is that is vibrating. There are no end of dampening pads and materials available, though I would suspect that it is something to do with the installation and as you say, the spacers used. I hope you get it sorted soon :)

[ClydeVella]

Anything is fixable if you have the time and/or money and can isolate what it is that is vibrating. There are no end of dampening pads and materials available, though I would suspect that it is something to do with the installation and as you say, the spacers used. I hope you get it sorted soon :)

Thanks :) I hope so too. I'd love to try myself but every time I try a DIY job I break or lose something and I love the car too much for that :P

[T600]

Great write up, and a top quality job there Johnny.

I very much doubt whether many audio shops would do it to that standard. You're obviously a perfectionist, but I'm sure it's worth it to get the best from the system.

ClydeVella; unless you can find someone you trust, you might as well have a go at it. At least you care about getting a good result, whereas the place you went to obviously didn't.

I'd always do this stuff myself now as I've only ever found one place that I know will take the time and care to do the job properly, and I don't live anywhere near them any more. Almost every other place I've used have messed the job up somehow - ranging from damage to the car to just poorly installed equipment that rattled or stopped working after a while. If the job's not done properly you might as well stick with the standard equipment.

[sphinktar1988]

Should be moved to the How To section spot on write up on a subject people always ask about

[Korny_Yaris]

going to attempt this later this month. Need 2 get hold of some rivet stuff though!

[suckerdad]

I've just done this today. Great instructions here. 

I am chuffed with the new door and dash Speakers. But now the original stereo is the weakest link. 

Damm the upgrade bug!

Onto a mech-less single din stereo.....

[ArniVidar]

4 minutes ago, suckerdad said:

Damm the upgrade bug!

Onto a mech-less single din stereo.....

Since I didn't want to bother with trying to fit a proper stereo in the car and lose the steering-wheel controls in the process, not to mention the CD player would be so far down it would almost require being in Reverse gear to insert a CD, I decided to just buy a bluetooth system (http://www.dension.com/products/car-multimedia-solutions/gateway-lite-bt) for the car. I bought and installed it in 30 minutes and now my phone is my player. MUCH better solution, but of course no more power.

It connects right to the Disk Changer port on the stock head unit of all '99-08 cars, and I even got the added bonus of now having hands-free phone operation :D

[suckerdad]

4 hours ago, ArniVidar said:

Since I didn't want to bother with trying to fit a proper stereo in the car and lose the steering-wheel controls in the process, not to mention the CD player would be so far down it would almost require being in Reverse gear to insert a CD, I decided to just buy a bluetooth system (http://www.dension.com/products/car-multimedia-solutions/gateway-lite-bt) for the car. I bought and installed it in 30 minutes and now my phone is my player. MUCH better solution, but of course no more power.

It connects right to the Disk Changer port on the stock head unit of all '99-08 cars, and I even got the added bonus of now having hands-free phone operation :D

Thanks for this recommendation.

maybe add an amp to the stock Yaris stereo to up the sound quality?

[ArniVidar]

23 hours ago, suckerdad said:

Thanks for this recommendation.

maybe add an amp to the stock Yaris stereo to up the sound quality?

I could have done that. Just needs an amp that has speaker inputs, since there is no RC out on the head unit. But I was happy enough with the total improvement in sound quality with the Alpines in both the dash and the doors, so I let it be :)

[yarisTS1985]

Hi,

 

Where did you buy the speaker harness from on photo 10  ? iam searching as a idiot but cant find it .

I see only the speaker harness for other toyota yaris models but not for the Yaris P1 till 2006 that i have

and don't want cut the original cables from the car.

can you please please give the internet link where i can order this ?

 

thanks 

[mrharijslv]

Hello!

Was looking for this post which helped me a lot!

But, i have yaris P1 model that doesn't have door Speakers, but has panel Speakers, which i already changed, and works well, so my door panel spot is empty but there is that amp wire or speaker connector, but it's not working. Maybe it's not connected on other end of wiring? 

[corradovr6]

Hmm thats strange - i too have  Ph 1 and it came with door Speakers, perhaps a previous owner removed them for some reason?  That notwithstanding, check that your harness has the output wire for 4 (or 6) Speakers - two dash tweeters, 2 door Speakers and two rear in-fill speakers.  If so, then you simply need to extend these to the two doors, running the cable inside the dash and through the cable boot in the door hinge to the door speaker.

Post up some photos and we can have a look