Well it's pretty much done.

The Bose System in my '92 has been (pretty much) replaced and I've lived to tell the tale.

First of all I need to thank everyone on this forum for all the help. It was invaluable. Especially 92tripleblack, he's not the only one who helped, but he seemed to respond to every post I started, from the (lengthy) planning and preparation stages, all through the actual install. I have learned more about car stero systems, and the ididotically designed Corvette Bose system, from this forum than I would have ever imagined I could.

I started Thursday night, I figure I'd have it done Friday night, or Sat morning. I was wrong.

I'm still not quite done. The car goes in for a rear end swap and some tranny work tomorrow so I halted for a week until I get it back. Hopefully I can finish next weekend.

MATERIALS USED:
Pioneer MP3/Cd player
Pioneer 6x9's
Pioneer 5 1/4's
35ft of 14 gague wire (thick stuff)
GM wiring harness
GM dash kit
many tools, wire nuts, electrical tape, etc...

PROCEDURE:
- I started by removing the Bose Head unit, no problem there.
- I than removed the old Bose speakers and amps, still not much of a problem
- Then I tried to install the 6x9's and 5 1/4's... this was my first sign of trouble. The Bose boxes had to be modified quite a bit to accomidate these speakers. I wasn't expecting this. Someone probably told me at one point, but I guess I missed it. In any event the 6x9 conversion went pretty well. But the front boxes couldn't be made to fit my speakers. The speakers would go in the boxes, but they were too tall and when put into the car and the carpeted door sill/speaker cover was put back on the cover was touching the cone of the speaker. Over time this would DESTROY both my front speakers. I have yet to figure out a way around this (currently the front speakers are not installed) I think I'm going to cut the carpeted covers and use the mesh covers that came with the Pioneer speakers.

- Next I ran wire from the speakers to the Head Unit. That was MUCH easier than I expected.

- Then I tried to install the Head Unit, no dice. The harness I bought from Best Buy would not plug in to the car, so I couldn't get any power. I had no idea what wires to use for power... there was such a mess under my passanger dash. I was able to track down some power wires (as well as the antennea wire!) that were going to a broken Kenwood Cd Changer box that the previous owner had installed and I used those for power.... after I replaced the fuses I had blown everything powered up just fine.

- The next problem came when I tried to mount the head unit.... The dash kit was WAY to big and utterly useless and the space wasn't deep enough to allow the radio to be mounted and the plastic front plate trim of the car to be installed anyways. I had to dremel out some of the trim to make room. Also the bolt holes on the car don't line up, so right now the left side of my stereo is about 1/4 to 1/2 inch lower than my right side (i.e. it's crooked) I think I'll have to drill even holes when I get the car back. Also, since I went from a double din to a single din unit I have quite an empty space under my head unit.


ENDING THOUGHTS:
All in all it was quite an experience. So far I have about 10 hours in it, and I think it'll take about two more to get the head unit straight, the empty space filled and the front speakers in. But for now I have a working radio and two rear speakers

I was pretty upset that I bought a wiring harness and a dash kit that I ended up not using. They were only $30 together, but still!!! And both are opened and were attempted to be used so they can't go back.

 

Hey man, I know how you feel. I going to space the speaker covers out a little to keep them away from the door speakers, you might want to try that too.

 

For my head unit, I shaved the dash to fit the din shapes and mounted them to the dash, the unit and a metra din pocket that is.
2 additional things to consider.
1. The dash bezel is cheap and still available from GM. Since you filed the edges of it, why not get a replacement for $35 and put it away. If you ever want to go stock, you can.
2. The front speaker grills are no longer available. If you cut them they will be hard to replace. I would see if there is another alternative before cutting. An idea you might try is to make a spacer for the grill so it sits a little off the stock location. This would be made from scrap MDF and some extra carpet. Just an idea.
Not sure why you had the problems with the fronts. You could also make some boxes from 1/4" MDF and put them where the bose were getting a little more room.
Good luck.


[Modified by 92TripleBlack, 9:16 PM 7/15/2002]

 

I work part time at a Best Buy and I think you are wrong about being able to take the parts back. As long as you have your receipt, go to customer service and tell them the parts were wrong and you want a refund. Good luck.

 

wow, what you went thru seems to be a good example of what I am about to - See my post above. I hope I can work this all out with help from the forum, as you did. as it is, i got 4' so they should install properly.

 

I am having the same problem mounting my 5 1/4 Boston Acoustics. I realized right away that the Bose box couldn't be modified without a lot of work. I ended up buying the speaker mounting plates from a non-Bose car. I had to add a 1/2"MDF spacer to the front to space the magnet out away from the frame, making it about the same size as the front of the mounting plate.

All is good with this except the carpeted covers are right on top of the speaker. Its close to working, but not quite. I'm also thinking of cutting the cover and using the speaker grilles. Anyone have a good alternative?

As far as the rest of the install, there was much more disassembly than I had thought. The receiver is really hidden under the passenger side dash and I had to remove the dash cover (top of the dash) to get at the antenna. I did find the harness for power etc. at the reciever and am now able to use the standard GM harness adapter and make a long harness to the new head unit.

I'm kinda fussy when it comes to doing this stuff, so I decided to take it on myself. I hate to even think about the cost of having this installed by a pro. Then again, from the local "pros" I've taked to, I don't think I would have been happy with their work.

Mounting the head unit looks like I need to fabricate some "L" brackets to support the head unit in the dash. The rear looks easy enough, a small bracket to space the "bayonet" from the center of the new unit to the existing spot.

So, from my perspective, I think I would have thought a little more about fixing the existing Bose unit, as much as I hate to say it. The project was a lot more work than I figured it would be.

 

Big John,
Its a little late for the antenna solution, but the antenna has two plug locations. One is at the receiver, the other is where it comes through the rear body of the car under the carpet. The easy way to do it is to hook up an antenna extension to this plug and run the antenna wire to the radio. Cost is about $10 and since you have the sides open for speaker wires, running the wire is almost no additional time or work.
For the speakers, the spacer is a good option. You could cut the covers but they don't make new ones repo or not so it is not easy to reverse. You may want to space out the cover a little. I'm suprised the fronts are bottoming out in the bose boxes. I made my own boxes for my speakers and was able to use 6 1/2". A few of the guys made boxes from 1/4" MDF, removed the bose, and installed their speakers in the boxes behind the stock grills. If mounting them with the stock grills just touching the speakers and without the boston grills should be ok as they will be resting on the tweeter, which has its own built in protection in the case of the bostons and won't hurt the speaker or sound quality. Hope this helps out with some of the problems with the swaps for people. :smash:
http://www.clarinet.fi/~thilak/Kuvat...frontangle.jpg http://www.clarinet.fi/~thilak/Kuvat/vette/3-view.jpg

Above are some sketches of the boxes I made. I will be working on the car doing some sound dampening over the next few weeks so I will post pics when I can of the boxes I made.


[Modified by 92TripleBlack, 11:46 AM 7/26/2002]

 

The orginal Bose boxes just needed too much work to fit that speaker. The Non-Bose boxes were cheap, about $7 each and they worked out just fine with a piece of MDF bolted to the front. The speaker did need to be placed just right on the box to fit.

I may be able to take a little off the top of the MDF. After thinking about it a little, I may have a bit more clearance there than I think. It won't be much, I doubt if there is more than a 1/4" from the frame to the back of the magnet, but if I can cut it back that much, I may be able to do something without cutting the covers. The speakers hit the cover at the top and its just enough to hold the covers out away from the carpet, so I may also try to bring the speaker down another 1/4" or so, although there's not too much more room there either. Its a tight fit, no matter how you look at it.

You know, if this was a regular driver, the solution would be easy...that's why they make hammers and saws... :smash:

 

You have a different speaker setup in your ’89 Vette than these other guys do. They have later model C4’s with different interior and speaker locations.

The front Blose speakers in your car are in your doors, theirs is down on the frame rail next to the seats.

Since the stock Blose speakers in your doors are 4” then yes, 4” aftermarket speakers will fit with no problem at all in the stock Blose pods with no cutting or anything. You can even still use the stock speaker grill too. Unfortunately, as you will soon notice, you won’t get much sound from 4” speakers at all. You could go with 5.25” speakers but it will require minor cutting for diameter fit. You could also put 6.5” in there but that would require building a baffle out into the cabin area for depth fit. Or, you could simply build all new speaker enclosures for the doors and fit the 6.5” flush to the doorframe. The choice is yours.

The larger the speaker, the better the sound, and more of it too. ;)
Also, amping them would be a good idea. :yesnod: