You people suck. 12 years later, I finally replace speakers.

[semcoinc]

Originally Posted by Clockwork

I had a feeling that a mid range speaker would sound better/fuller in the rear door instead of a tweeter, especially since the crossover is tuned for a mid range and not tweeter


Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

OK, I'm convinced.

I bought the Amazon mids last night for my E46 rear doors and if I like them, I'll put them in the front doors as well. They are 4 ohms which will be a lot closer to the 3 ohm OE units and won't take as much power to drive.

Mike

[PropellerHead]

Originally Posted by PropellerHead

My hope also is never to see the inside of these damn doors again.

Well, it was fah-REEZING here today so I spent some time doing indoor projects that helped fund all the others. The short story is that I am ramping up a new notebook for the younger female unit and we're completely restructuring the 'service' we as parents provide. Cloud storage, device tracking, and device management. I am professionally linked to the way large companies with 100's of thousands of devices keep them secure. Step x step, we'll have the same management in place. BUT, there is a point with this stuff at which you're just watching water boil as data gets moved around. And that is just boring.

Enter my stop in to the BMW dealer's parts counter on Friday. I lost some of those door panel screws, you see. They're screws I figured. I'll get a 1/2 dozen and be ok with losing more, right? Yeah. No. These little bastards are $5.60 EACH! I lost a record # of THREE of them! Pardon the pun... but SCREW THAT!

So, I thought like we all would that this must be a stealer at work. $6 screws? Not since Mexico, my friends. But no.. I found that the price was pretty much the same across most online outlets... (I also cocked up the trim plugs, so.. like why not fix that as well? I'll tell ya why not:

So, $40 for some screws and some covers that no one will ever freakin see. No thanks.

So motivated was I that I took a trip to the pull a part yard. I was absolutely pleased with my haul! I'm not kidding: This haul was $23.

I know what you're thinking.. WTF are those mirrors? Well.. they're auto-dimming rear view mirrors from an E38 and an E46. They go for a couple $100 on flea bay. They drop off a parts car in like 30 seconds. Fully worth the trouble whether they work or not.

Entrance to the yard cost me $2. I found the E46 without too much trouble. That it was grey inside was lucky. In a matter on minutes, I had secured 1/2 dozen of these gold-plated screws. In a moment of WTF not, I also snagged an E46 front mid range speaker grill and secure ring. This I have already used to plan for the fronts on the E46.

I can now confirm that the E46 front mids and E53 rear mids are the exact same grill and securing ring behind the panels. The Memphis mids will fit, but of course the modification will be different from the smaller mids on the rear doors. Same speakers. Very, very strange.

Anyway, I am THRILLED to report that the rear doors on the E46 are now covered, glued, and screwed. Kinda like an order of Waffle House hash browns. I am sure many of us can relate to the fine feeling that comes with such progress. I'm looking forward to the same in the E53.

It's supposed to be too cold tomorrow morning to get a head start on the front E46 doors. I will probably at least modify the Memphis units to fit into the current mids.

[semcoinc]

Hi Prop,

Sounds like a great day of part scrounging progress. I love U-Pick-It yards

Yeah I buggered up my arm rest plugs so will have to figure that out one of these days. But, somehow a couple years ago I got a whole bag full of those door card "screws" for dirt cheap and was easily able to replace the few that got trashed when I pulled the front door cards off.

One more time on them and I'm calling it done with Peerless mids in there and the Amazon mids in the rear, both 4 ohm so volume matching should be much better to the OE 3 ohm set ups.

Waiting for all my mids to get here.............

Mike

[PropellerHead]

Originally Posted by PropellerHead

It's supposed to be too cold tomorrow morning to get a head start on the front E46 doors. I will probably at least modify the Memphis units to fit into the current mids.

And cold it was. Until you get into sunlight. So, I took advantage of a nice day to trim up the Memphis mids using the junkyard speaker assembly as a template. That went really easy. When I finally pulled the door panel, I realized that the speaker assemblies from the non-HK '99 323 and my wife's '00 HK were a bit different from one another- and my E53. Same size, of course but my wife's assembly secured the speakers with only two plastic tabs instead of 4 like the X5. It's a little thing, but it does make me wonder if different E53's have different tabs as well.

I prepped the Memphis mids using the junkyard assembly. A snip here and a trim there. It took less time to do the work than it did to get the tools ready.

Anyway, since the driver's panels was off, I wanted to be sure I applied GTMat to it. My hope was to walk away and never see it again like the rears. Of course, that is a pipe dream. The JL C2's are pretty deep. I spent some time being sure they'd mount with the OE brackets, but it's still very close. I will need to pull the panels again and make myself feel better ab it.

[Ricky Bobby]

Wow Mike clean work on those rear deck drivers!

[semcoinc]

Originally Posted by Ricky Bobby

Wow Mike clean work on those rear deck drivers!

Thanks RB!

PS: I had to shave the OE washers on an edge to have them seat flush against the mounting ring.

I will take a pic of them with the OE covers on to show how closely they can fit. Not perfect, but good enough for me. Here are the pics of my results....works for me





Sorry, it's been 30*F in Wisconsin and the glass got some spray the other day.

Mike

[Clockwork]

Vegas: 1, Mike: 0. At least 2 sets of my new JL C2-600's showed up. Nice looking hardware.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[Clockwork]

So both Fountek and Memphis Audio mid ranges are being run in cars. Has anyone bought the Vifa brand?

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[Ricky Bobby]

Jay has (X5Jay4.8is) - he is putting them in his rear doors -

[semcoinc]

For me, the more I think about it and listen to the Founteks over the last couple of days, the more I think the 8ohms is a liability to my E46 front door mids.

To my ears, they really do not carry enough punch to give a good enough mid-range blend unless the volume is punched up a good bit.

For this reason, more and more I am looking forward to the 4ohm Amazon mids to hear their punch in the rear doors.

Mike