Last night I attempted to finish up the speaker install. It's 7pm now and I finally "finished". There are a few more tweaks needed and I want to replace the speaker I punctured... but for all intents and purposes, I have the speakers installed.
While I had them off, I turned the door handles gray to match the rest of the build out. I painted a couple of other trim panels as well.
While removing the passenger door, a bolt sheered off. After all the sheered bolts with the roof rack, this just seemed par for the course.
It took about an hour of grinding, drilling, heating, cooling, hammering and twisting to get the bolt free. I also soaked it in penetrating oil for a spell as well. When it finally gave way, I felt great relief.
All that was last night. The bolt really set me back. I got everything wired up, but hadn't attached the tweets. I finally got to listen to my new speakers and I am extremely impressed with the audio quality. The annoying little tweeters really make it work. I can understand NPR over all the road noise without having to crank the radio. I love it!
Today, I finally chose a place to mount the tweeters and installed them. I ran the wiring between my panel and the door to prevent it from getting caught in the window regulator (new vocab word, thanks WVvan). I also did a little more trim work on the panels. They're near final in shape now.
Then, the doors finally came together. I used a lot of screws to attach those panels. That's a good thing, but I sure get tired of taking them on and off.
Once the doors were done, the last thing left to do was hide those components under the dash. The old center speaker hold was almost big enough, but required some trimming. I used a dremel to cut until I could bend the metal out of the way. I had to use a variety of tools to get the metal bent. It wasn't hard to bend, just hard to get to. Once bent, the fit was perfect... except for where it bolts together. I'm going to need to adjust one bolt and buy longer bolts... but... like I said in the beginning, it's done for now. I probably won't mess with it until I start covering all the wood panels.
While working, a freak hailstorm slammed down while I was inside the van.
Here's a video.
Along the way, I did snap a shot showing all the speakers installed. Here's the final (I hope) layout.
Saturday is almost gone so I'm not sure what I'm going to tear into next. It's also still raining a bit. I have a lot of odds and ends to attend to so I might do little things for a while before jumping into the next more significant project.
I realized something today.
Pro Tip: Clean often.
There were several times when I started to feel overwhelmed, like when the bolt sheered or when I punctured the speaker. There were other times too. Several times I stopped working and started cleaning and organizing. It gave me a chance to stop doing and think more about the problem. Once I'd cleaned up for a bit, it created an environment much more conducive for working. Something about the clutter around me created clutter in my mind.
Linear Mode
