Wiring tweeters and hiding crossovers!

[Stevo-M 0]

Hi, i think i'm going to buy the speakers in the link below as a cheap replacement for the factory front speakers and plan on mounting the tweets in the dash speaker grills. I know a few of you have done this with good results so what i'd like to know is how you wire the tweeters, do you use the existing wire or run the new cable through the dash to the door/crossover, and if it's the latter is it a pig of a job?

Also where is a good place to mount the crossovers? I don't really want them on display.

Cheers

http://www.bassjunkies.com/audio/jbl-gto507c

[VR6 0]

The crossovers can be hidden but it means taking off trim in the driver and passenger footwells. Plus the door cards will need to come off, which again isn't too bad.

 

I ran new cable from the doors and tweeters to the crossovers and HU seeing as though you're taking lots of trim off anyway.

 

Whatever you decide, it's not that difficult, just a bit time consuming getting all the trim on and back on correctly again. Not hard though.

[Jon_vr6 1]

Just done this on mine crossovers are hidden behind the footrest for the gas pedal on the drivers side and above the storage tray on passenger side! The sound goes to the tweeter first and then to the woofer in the door card! So to get the input for the crossover you should notice when disconnecting the original tweeter in the dash that there are two connector blocks going into it, unplug one of the plugs and if you stop hearing sound coming through the tweeter then that is the input wire (crossover) (if you still hear sound then the input is the other connector block!

[Jon_vr6 1]

Or i have just found an old dinkus post:

 

Well if you can get the doorcards off, that's half the problem!

 

The plan

What you're trying to do is get the signal from the head unit to the crossover. It then branches from there to the tweeter and woofer.

 

Luckily, most of the wiring you need to do that is already there. Assuming you've still got the standard wiring in place - the signal goes from the head unit, to the tweeter, then down from there to the woofer.

 

So you need to take the wire that comes from the head unit and reroute it to wherever your crossover is instead of going into the tweeter.

 

You then run 2 sets of wires back up from wherever your crossover is:

 

The first set go back up to the tweeter

The other set joins on to the existing wiring that used to go from the tweeter to the woofer.

 

With me so far? :lol:

 

Working out what goes where

To work out which wire is which, pop the cover off the tweeter (it is push-fit, honest).

 

The tweeter is then mounted into a round plastic tray thing, which also just pops out. Underneath, you have 2 plugs - one of those comes from the head unit, the other goes to the woofer.

 

To find out which is which, put some music on and ideally fade it all the way to the side of the car you're working on. Now, unplug one of the 2 connectors and listen to what happens - if everything goes off, then the one you just unplugged is the one coming from the head unit. If the woofer just goes off but you can still hear the tweeter doing it's thang... and I'll let you work out which one you've just unplugged :)

 

Where to put the crossovers

Crossover positioning can be fun too - I put the one on the driver's side beind the footrest next to the accelerator pedal, but it's a tight fit so try it before you scrape your knuckles running the wire!

 

The passenger side one I actually stuck to the side of the back of the glove box with some sticky pads, but you could drill a hole in the glove box and put it in there. If you didn't have ABS, it could go in the corresponding footrest position, but on the passenger side.

 

Also bear in mind...

There will be different connectors on the Infinity (or indeed any after-market) stuff to the VW wiring, so you'll need to get you a set of spade connectors.

 

The speakers may not fit properly on the standard mounts - the diameter will be ok, but the new woofers will probably stick out a bit further than the Nokia jobbies. This means that you may need to put spacers on the pins on the door card that the woofer attaches to, or you cut away some of the door pod so that the speaker doesn't touch (you'll understand what I mean when you do it).

 

I used an extra set of the rubber bung things that are on there from the factory, but failing that some nuts will do the trick (nut and bolt nuts, not peanuts! :lol:) Just make sure they're clamped in tight otherwise they'll vibrate and drive you nuts!

 

Good luck - it's not an ideal setup, but short of removing all the skin on your knuckles and/or half the dashboard to run new speaker wiring, it's as good as you're gonna get with the standard setup :D

[Stevo-M 0]

Spot on, i did search but must've tried the wrong words :roll: . So does this mean i need to extend the wire from the tweeter mount to the crossover?

[A1 VR6 0]

If you don't mind cutting a bit of foam out of the door panel backing using the crossover as a template you can put them there with double sided trim tape or like and then you only have to remove the door panels.

 

Just make sure you pick a spot where there's a gap in the metal on the inside of the door :)

[Jon_vr6 1]

So does this mean i need to extend the wire from the tweeter mount to the crossover?

 

 

Yep you need to extend the input wire