johngammel

At a recent car show my long running project to get my '61 back together was casually discussed. Somehow we got on the subject of radios and speakers and I described how I install the speaker by myself. Someone said I should post it so here it is.

To understand what I do visualize the speaker as being under the dash pad and then you are going to run two equal lengths of fish line (about 5 feet) through the speaker holes on each end and then through the matching dash pad holes. I then remove all the slack, attach a soft coated rubber weight to hold the speaker in place, put in the grill and bezel and then partially install the speed nuts. I then next cut and remove the fish line and then tighten down the bezel.

The process takes less than 10 minutes.

Frankie the Fink

Wow... Can't say I've EVER had to go through all that...

GTOguy

Having a '61 myself, and a newly acquired Wonderbar and speaker, I was unaware that it was that difficult....I haven't really looked at it, but it doesn't seem worse than a lot of cars. Is the fishing line method a timesaver, or a better way to do it? I would be inclined to hold the speaker up there from underneath and reach around and start a fastener and go from there.

roju1985

Holding the speaker and starting the speed nut is doable, but much easier said than done. I actually had the issue the stubs on my speaker grille were like 1/16' too short which took me a lot of frustration to get the speaker in. Not sure this would have saved me any time but it's an interesting idea!

6D2148

Looks like it eliminates need for third hand, or second for that matter, cool!

61 Roadster

Very clever; wish I'd thought of it before installing mine!

GTOguy

The idea of inadvertently sticking a finger through the cone of a new speaker while trying to hold onto it makes this option more and more attractive! I'll look into it when I get around to mine.

Frankie the Fink

I must be more dexterous than some of the posters here...
I haven't had to think twice about installing a radio speaker in a C1...but I have long arms and spaghetti fingers...

This is definitely a 'first world' problem...

stratplus

That really seams like the Rube Goldberg method of installing a speaker. Wow.

I am glad you got it in.

61 Roadster

I've installed front speakers in two C1's; the toughest issue was short/broken studs on the speaker bezels. John's tip would have helped immensely at the time!

johngammel

Thanks for the comments. I find this to be easy and almost no risk. Oh - and my arms aren't really long, I'm "older" and not too dexterous any more and my thumbs are damaged from decades of computer coding and related work.

Enough said. On to figuring out how to run my car off the front carb only so I can pump a lot of gas through it.