Speaker Mounts for 87 SDL

[rektide]

What size speakers are in my 87 300SDL?

thanks,
rektide

[sixto]

4x6 with small magnets up front, 6-1/2 in the rear.

If you get the front door trim frames from an 88-91 W126 you can fit 6-1/2's in the front doors and have it look completely unmolested. Your hips will enjoy the extra bass

Sixto

[sixto]

I should say that's what your car should have come with. Who knows what's in there 20 years later :/

Sixto

[rektide]

how do i fit 6.5" in a 4x6 hole? does it involve cutting/dremeling, or is there enough cutaway to just drop it in.

i presume by thin magnets you mean shallow depth?

Man, so glad to get away from my last cars 4" 'ers!

[sixto]

You can't put anything bigger than 4x6s in the dash without a chainsaw. By 6-1/2s in front I mean in the doors if you use the door panel frames from an 88-up W126. Just find a junker that has the same color interior. It's your call whether to use the entire replacement door panel with pleated leather or put the frame over your door panel with perforated leather.

The dash has 4x6 openings but there are defroster ducts in the way so you can't fit speakers with large diameter magnets. I got some Polks hoping they'd improve the sound. They probably would have but I'd have had to hack the ducts. Rainbow brand 4x6s that are highly recommended for W124s might fit. I don't think 4x6s come deep enough to use the vertical space in an SDL dash.

Sixto

[greasybenz]

i actually cut out 6.5 holes on the pocket of the door in the SD. i had 6.5 Sdats that fit prefectly and looked more stock then ghetto.

[rektide]

What kind of depth can you get on the front door panels? I have some 6.5" Polk's taht are 2" deep that Im looking at trying to use.

Probably gonna chain saw it up. Might try and find a drill adapter to do the job. What area of the door would you suggest I try?

-rektide

[sixto]

The factory put door speakers in the lower rear corners of the front doors. If you mount your speakers similarly, most of each speaker will be in the pocket. You might not have to cut into the door panel, but you'll have to baffle the pocket. The speaker fires right into the seat so all it's good for is bass.

Sixto

[rektide]

Oye, front speaker-age isnt looking so good: 4x6 thats too shallow to be truly useful, or a 6x6 that fires into the side of the seat.

Thanks again for bearing with me!

[Hit Man X]

You can get some decent sound from some 4x6Ms. If not, get a 4" comp set...

[rektide]

Pretty worried about finding a shallow 4x6 though. sixto seems to indicate its pretty cramped in that space. I'll look for those rainbow magic speakers, or whatever they were called.

[sixto]

It's not shallow, it's narrow.

I have a set Polk EX346 speakers (practically NIB if anyone wants them). The magnets are too big to fit an 87 SDL. I suppose you can crush the defroster ducts for clearance.

Sixto

[rektide]

i have my car & installed my speakers, so I'll drop an update here:

the front mounts are kind of an embarasement, theres nothing really to grip into. theres certainly not any kind of standard mounting. get thin 4x6's and cross your fingers everyone. just drill and screw wherever possible to get the speaker mounted down as much as possible.

for the rear, there is a "huge" hole in the back with a custom stand to angle the stock speakers frontwards. i ended up pulling out the stand & speaker and using some industrial epoxy to mount my new 6"'ers into the stands. the fit was just perfect for my Diamond Audio S600's, such that the circumfrence of the speaker is exactly the same as the circumfrence of the stand. i then used a hole saw drillbit to carve holes in the back for the tweeters. it was suprisingly simple and rewardingly clean. the stands do a good job of projecting forwards, which is essential since the speakers are recessed so far back.

the componenets i have in dont have bass, so i'm thinking of adding a bass underneath the rear seat. there's a very large cavity built into the frame under the seats, and it looks ideal for a acoustic actuator and decent 6-8 inch bass driver. you could probably also add fill speakers here too, just make them forward facing and grill them so the rear passengers dont kick them out by accident.

unfortunately the biasing still sucks. theres two crappy front mount 4x6's and the rest of the speaker cavity spaces are in the back. the doors on my 300sdl have huge pouches, if as people advised, there are replacement door interiors that have sealed areas where these pouches are, it would greatly assist in adding some front fill to this mix. at some point i'll probably drill out 6 inch holes and install something. again the front speakers are just dreadfully under par because of such shoddy mounting and small space.

[sixto]

Check out the front door speakers of this car -

http://www.showroomclassics.com/late_model.php?id=f02b0cef130195de7b2cf37535b8c40f

Sixto
93 300SD 3.0