Seat Base Speaker Box Refurb

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spikeemikey
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Seat Base Speaker Box Refurb

Post by spikeemikey » Fri Nov 27, 2009 2:25 pm

Hi Guys

With this terrible weather I haven't managed to do much on the exterior paintwork, so I have moved to the interior, here's a few pics of the re-varnishing of the rear bench seat frame. It was looking a bit sad, but under the scuffs, and a few oil stains, there was great wood.

Image

Image
Happily back in the van, after about 20 hours, and four new coats varnish and lots elbow grease. Waiting to harden and get a bit of beeswax.

I am planning on covering the grey painted rear compartment door/side panel cards with a similar shade of grey upholstery vinyl as they are also also a bit scuffed. I don't have the facility/ability to repaint them. I kind of like vinyl too!

Cheers

Mike

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Dubmatix
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Re: Hi

Post by Dubmatix » Sat Nov 28, 2009 10:17 pm

Looks good Mikey! It's amazing what a difference it's made. Look forward to seeing the vinyl panels. :D
I think i might repaint my sliding door card as that's sscuffed a bit. If i can find a decent paint match.

J

PS moved this to the Tech section.

spikeemikey
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Joined:Fri Sep 18, 2009 11:48 am

Re: Seat Base Speaker Box Refurb

Post by spikeemikey » Mon Nov 30, 2009 4:15 pm

Hi John

I think I will build boxes to separate and seal the speakers at a 'later date' as they are just bolted to the front board. That should improve the sound quite a bit. Having that air grille letting the rear wave out is probably cancelling out some of the forward radiated sound.

Just embarked on installing some 6.5" speakers in the lower portions of the front doors. Scarily cut a small amount of metal from the doors yesterday. Some pictures in a week or two (hopefully).

Cheers

Mike

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Dubmatix
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Re: Seat Base Speaker Box Refurb

Post by Dubmatix » Mon Nov 30, 2009 9:10 pm

Nice, i have done a bit of messing with speaker boxes and porting. There's some interesting stuff on the web about it....i just used trial and error pre-web days! Having a port means you can have an opening in your box which actually enhances bass output (as seen on many sub boxes) but requires calculation or trial and error messing to get a decent sound.
Is that grille a heater outlet?

Cutting metal from the door? Eeek! I couldn't do it! I had to put some pod type speakers under the dash with a small bass speaker in a custom made box in the spare wheel! I made that out of the bottom of a bucket from Wilkos with a plywood top glued to the top. It's a good use of space as that is just dead space. I have a crossover to split the bass to this speaker but not fitted it yet.

It'll be interesting to see your progress on this.

I stuck the head unit in a Halfords underdash tray as i wanted to keep the original radio controller in the DIN slot. I made brackets to adapt the tray so it would fit under original bolt fixings for the steering column and handbrake....no holes drilled!

J





John

spikeemikey
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Re: Seat Base Speaker Box Refurb

Post by spikeemikey » Fri Dec 04, 2009 11:02 pm

Hi John

Interesting stuff. I used to be a bit of audio-freak in my 20s so its nice to revisit it with the van. Once the front speakers are in I will have to think about the subwoofer. Its tough though - I dont want to use a skinny flat one (say in the space under the front seats) so will need to get a bit creative. I was think of having one behind each of the battery boxes in the main compartment and trying to blend them in with the battery boxes by making the enclosures the same width but taller with the woofers firing upwards from sealed boxes, keeping them smaller than a ported design.

Radio-wise I got mine going last week. I have removed the comms aerial and substituted it with a huge orange spring base loaded CB aerial which gives a great FM signal thru a little splitter box you can buy for the purpose. The aerial really suits the style of the van :) Unfortunately the existing aerial cable seems to be the wrong impedance to get a decent match for low SWR so I have stalled on putting the CB in though I have got it mounted in the comms radio tray.

Cheers

Mike

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