DeLorean: Front-speaker replacement.

by WyldKard on November 2, 2006

It wasn’t long ago that I bought myself a vintage ’81 DeLorean. As with any car 25 years old, she has a few issues, but half the point of buying an older car is fixing her up as a hobby. In my case, I bought a running DeLorean that was maintained pretty well, for under the average market price. Part of those savings, however, will have to go towards fixing aesthetic issues and a fwe tweaks here and there.

The second “fix” I worked on was replacing the front speakers, since the old ones didn’t seem to be working very well. My plan is to replace the entire audio system in the vehicle, but because of time and money, all work on the DeLorean will be done piece-wise.

After inquiring with the community about the procedure, I found that I needed to hack the procedure somewhat to get the front speakers in properly. I documented the method I used, which involved the simple engineering of four “brackets” to aid in mounting speakers with protruding tweeters. I’m pretty satisfied with the job thus far, and I’m now throwing around whether or not I want to replace the rear speakers the conventional way, or if I want to simply add speaker boxes for something larger. Either way, the tinkering involved in getting my DeLorean up to par will certainly keep me busy for some time to come.

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1 WyldKard November 5, 2006 at 6:55 pm

Should the forum thread I started be down, the post reads:

I wanted to use my existing speakers rather than spend money on news ones. After thinking about how I could get them in, I decided to head down to Home Depot and pick up a sheet of galvanized sheet metal for roofing. I cut out four strips approximately .75″ x 2.75″. In each end I drilled a small hole, and bent the strips twice, .75″ from each end. I then snipped off a little extra length from the outside edge of each hole.

When I was done, I had four “brackets”. One end of these I attached to the old speaker mounts using the old hardware. I then took 1/4 screws and put them in the other end of each bracket, and secured the new speakers using these longer screws.

The install went smooth enough, and didn’t require me to cut the dash, screw into the fiberglass, or otherwise modify anything already in the car. The top edge of the tweeters in the speakers I used sit close to the dash, and though the speakers aren’t flush, the sound quality is still good, and much better than the old stock speakers.

The only tools I used were a drill, a socket wrench for the nuts, a pair of scissors with which to cut the sheet metal, and a pair of pliers to bend the metal. Total cost: less than a dollar. Much better than spending another 30-60 dollars on new speakers.


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