My grandchildren gave me an ipod for Christmas. Got me intersted in a stereo for my 79. I built the box in the photo with two 6" midranges, a 10" subwoofer with an amp. I installed two tweeters in the side panels where the seat belts come out of, kick panel speakers, and new dash speakers and a new Pioneer that plays the ipod. I installed the ipod cable in the glove compartment so I can plug in the ipod and control it with the stereo. I ran two sets of RCA cables to the amp. One set for the tweeters/midrange and one set for the subwoofer as the stereo had an RCA connectio for subs that can be adjusted separately. Now you talk about fun with some old rock'n roll tunes with a lot of sax and drums. Pretty good for an old guy. HA! All the young kids in town love my Vette.

 

The 4X6 would fit in the kick panel locations, which may prefer, if you wanted to try there.
Most any 4X6 grilles should work.

 

What does it mean when you said I could, "hook the speakers up in series?" I originally was hoping that the 4x6's would fit in with the factory covers but that isn't going to happen. It looks like I may go the speaker grill cover route. I guess not all 4x6's are made the same.....

 

The factory dash speakers have a simple speaker and a metal speaker retainer that are screwed to the underside of the dash. Will the new speakers fit if you just leave off the retainer?

Speakers can be wired together in "series" or "parallel" manner. Series wiring is from + amp output to + terminal of one speaker, then from - terminal of speaker to the + terminal on the 2nd speaker, and [finally] from - terminal on 2nd speaker to - terminal on amp. Parallel wiring would be that all + terminals of the speakers are tied together and run to the + terminal of the amp; likewise, all - terminals of the speakers are tied together and run to the - terminal on the amp. If you hook two 2-ohm speakers together in series, they will total 4 ohms. If you hook two 2-ohm speakers in parallel, they will total 1 ohm. You need to wire the speakers so that they best match-up with the output impedence of your head unit/amp.

Also, most speakers are 'coded' for which lug is the 'positive' connector. Some have a colored dot painted/stuck by the + terminal connector. Some have a colored stripe on the wire going to the + connector. If your speaker has a "B" designation by one of the terminals, I would surmise that to be the 'positive' terminal. In DC-circuit lingo, B+ is used for the supply voltage; ^ is probably the 'ground' line. You also need to determine whether the negative speaker output is to be the same as 'chassis ground' or not. Some heads/amps have the speaker terminals isolated from the power source; others use chassis ground as the - speaker connection, as well. Follow the instructions on your head unit installation manual.

 

The head unit is not new. I bought the car 3 weeks ago and the head unit is an old Sony tape player that has been there for probably 20 years. I plan on replacing it at sometime but money-wise I went with speakers right now since only 1 speaker was working anyway.

Another question: The old factory speakers have a special clip that connects the speakers to the factory wiring on the Corvette. Should I remove this clip and solder it on the new speakers and just plug them in the old factory speaker harness? Or should I cut the clips out of the factory wiring and splice the wires instead?

 

[QUOTE=Smoking Gun;1571432870]The head unit is not new. I bought the car 3 weeks ago and the head unit is an old Sony tape player that has been there for probably 20 years. I plan on replacing it at sometime but money-wise I went with speakers right now since only 1 speaker was working anyway.

QUOTE]

I have to ask...did you test the speaker that's not working? How do you know it's not the tapedeck? Hate to see you rig up speakers and find out the orignal still works...

 

[QUOTE=Wuttin;1571433433]Here's the lowdown on what has happened so far. I went to Best Buy two days ago and had the install guys look at the stereo and see if they could install a new head unit. The guy said it was no problem. I bought one that day an d scheduled an install for yesterday. They looked at it for about 20 minutes and decided they did not want to install the CD player. So I returned the product and used th emoney to buy speakers.

I have many of the same questions you do. I wasn't sure if the problem was the player or the speakers. I decided I would replace both anyway but could only afford one fix right now. Since the head unit install didn't work I'm going with speakers. I realize that I may install these and still get no sound but that isn't a problem since I can't hear anything out of the factory speakers when the car is running anyway.

 

All you have to do is connect a 'good' speaker to each output channel on the head unit to see if it works properly [or not]. Better do that before you install new speakers and button it up. For that matter, once you get the unit and speakers installed, try everything out before you start to reassemble anything.

 

Interesting reading along, and what people have done to meet their goals.

I also want to upgrade the sound-system in my '71(an old two-**** Sony AM/FM/Cassette unit going to two box-speakers resting in the storage area), but I'm not willing to cut anything, and I really want it to look as stock as possible, so much so that I'm willing to compromise on sound-quality (which will *have* to be better than the tin-cup setup in there now).

So if I'm reading the above posts properly, what would probably work best for me (though far from ideal, I understand) would be some tweeters/midrange tucked behind the speaker-grilles in the top of the dash, and something to provide the bass behind the original speaker-grilles in the factory kickpanels. Power those through something other than a Custom Autosound unit, which would give me iPod and thumbdrive connectivity and control?

What would I use to divvy-up the frequencies between the kickpanel and dashboard units, a crossover? And what would be the kind of speakers I'd want to put in the dash, and in the kick-panels? Do they sell individual tweeters/midrange units that would mount behind the dash grille? Or a bass unit to mount in the kickpanel?

 

I have connected all my new speakers and found out that they all work. The next step is finding a way to mount the 6x9's in the back. Any ideas? They are definitely not fitting in the factory locations.

 

heres what i did for mounting my 6x9s




maybe youll like your infinities, but i absolutely hated them. the tweeters were ear piercingly bright. although if your not running these off a powered amp, they probably wont ever get loud enough to be a problem.

 

Best bet is to leave the dash speakers unhooked and tied up, out of the way. You'll want the rears and kicks, that should be good enough, untill you get a Sub.

 

This is another way to get bass.

 

Yes, actually very close to ideal for a car. You can get a component set that has 2 speakers & crossovers. Some 5.25 can be fitted to kick panel location behind the factory panels.

 

How did it turn out? pics?

 

I have all the speakers connected and the good news is they all work so I know my problem was the speakers and not receiver. The bad news is I will need to get grille covers for the 4x6's because the factory cover does not fit. This isn't that big of a deal to me. The even worse part is that, like everyone else, the 6x9's do not fit in the factory locations. I'm currently looking at a few different set-ups but all seem to be fairly expensive. I do like the pre-fab mounting that let me mount 2 6x9's and a sub though. Right now the speakers in the back are connected by just lying on the floor.