thanks for your reply (you too brian). as you know, there is an airbag in the door. i appears that the panel is 2 piece. the grills do appear to be "fixed" and your reply makes sense. i will not replace the HU for the reason that you stated, namely the phone. the previous owner had some kind of line level adapter/converter (not sure which) that appears to be wired internally (to the HU), although i suspect not to the preamp board. the ideal thing to do would be to take the deck to a competent person to hook up the RCAs to the preamp board. the problem is finding someone competent. what i think ill do is use the high level input to the factory amp in the trunk to connect to an adjustable line level converter, one that requires a power source. it should sound fairly good. right now, the RCAs from the deck are only putting out a max of 200mV, which is not enough. the rear deck speakers are out. my plan is to exclude the rear door speaker and use the triangle and front door. ill use a power X-over and use the bass amp to drive the new square kicker solobaric, 8". not sure of the volume of the sealed enclosure, but my 12's use 0.88cu ft each. the box should be pretty small. if you guys are interested, ill communicate my progress....any advise, ect is appreciated..