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Fabia vRS front door speaker change - how to (with pics)


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Note: I hope this still makes sense as I'm now rewriting it and adding pics again because the first lot went AWOL. As this is the second time I'm writing it up, the photos are taken from my second Fabia which shows things that aren't entirely applicable to a first install. The text in grey refers to the original post which has information which no longer correlates to my current setup. However, it's still the case for using the OEM wiring loom. My current Fabia has new speaker cabling so I can leave the OEM wiring untouched. I've tried to differentiate the two by using red text for new stuff. :thumbup:

This is probably a bit long, but hopefully will explain a few things and save time when it comes round to changing your OEM front door speakers into something with a little more welly :)

I started off on the passenger side - it's the easier one to do because there's less cabling to worry about.

Make sure the window is closed.

First off, you need to remove remove the door card. Unless you've already done it before, have a read as you'll save yourself a lot of time and minimise damage to plastic trim ;)

With a torx screwdriver, unscrew the three screws at the bottom of the door. Then lift out the rectangular bit of trim in front of the door release handle (the driver side has the mirror adjustment ****). Behind it is the fourth torx screw

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Remove the front cover where the window switch is. You'll need a screwdriver, but if you have a rubber-tipped one, use it or you will leave indent marks on the trim. Pic below shows where the trim is clipped in place so ideally, if you get your screwdriver in one of those catches, you can lever it out. edit: It may be easier to start at the front (on the extreme RHS of the photo) as I've found this minimises damage and you can forcefully unclip the three retaining lugs without having to use a flat blade and damage the trim.

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Once you've lifted out thit bit of trim, disconnect the cable to the window switch and remove the trim. Then slide forward the top part of trim at the rear of the door handle. It should disengage from teh retaining lugs and remove this.

Now remove the three cross-headed bolts.

Now gently pull the door card, starting at the bottom. You'll hear the pop-clip thingies "explode" but that's normal as the release from the door frame. Unclip the red door light from the trim. You may then want to place a bit of masking tape over the electrical contacts because if they short against the door somewhere, you'll have fuse number 5 to replace. How do I know it's fuse number 5 ?..... :doh:;)

Once the door card is only left hanging at the top, and release the cable by the door opening handle and remove the door card, lifting it up to release the door pin at the top.

With the door card out of the way...

Remove the OEM speaker.

Drill through the four rivets holding the speaker in place. (this is why it's worth having the window up - you don't want to go driving through the rivets and end up cracking the pane!) Once the rivets are drilled through the speaker will still be held in place. Disconnect the cables at the top and prise the plastic speaker spacer apart from the silver metal sheet with a screwdriver. There may be some resistance and that's because of the insulating sticky stuff sealing the speaker against the inner door skin.

You'll now have the speaker removed.

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Ignore the white wire here, that's another little project replacing the OEM speaker wire!

Notice how little space there is behind the speaker hole - the window guide rail comes right down the middle :( This severely limits the speaker depth. If they're much more than 70mm, they will not fit between the window guide rail and the door trim (unless you cut that out and have the speaker sticking out. The Rainbows I'm putting in are the Rainbow Pro Vanadium 2-way components. They're 65mm deep.

I've measured the space between the window guide rail and the silver door plate to be about 21mm (the guide rail comes down at a slight angle and isn't totally parallel to the internal metal door skin.

So with this in mind, I need to build up a depth of about 45mm so the rear of the speaker still clears the window guide rail.

Also note the woofer is 16.5cm / 6.5inches diameter. Even though that's more than the OEM speaker, it does fit because although the OEM speaker is only a 13.5cm / 5.25in, the spacer is slightly conical shape (see this post).

Make up a new speaker spacer

You'll need some thick 18mm MDF to make up a spacer for your new speakers. If they're 16.5cm ones, you'll need to measure up the diameter hole required so they fit snugly inside. Due to the contours of the inner door skin, you cannot give yourself a large outside diameter. The spacer thickness will depend of course on the depth of the new speakers. I decided to make two 18mm spacers, stuck back to back with some insulation in between to pad it out to the required 45mm. Once the first one was made, I checked it against the door panel to mark up where the holes need to be drilled so that the spacers can be bolted onto the door through the holes where the rivets held the OEM speaker in place.

Now, fit the spacer to the door.

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The black diamond-shapped pattern stuff you see is just some additional soundproofing I put in beforehand. It's well worth doing, but requires to remove the window, silver plate, wiring loom, etc. See this thread :)

My initial build had the two rings and insulation all being held in by the four bolts going through the original rivet-hole locations. On this current install, I decided to have just the first ring bolted into the backplate. The second ring / insulation / speaker were then screwed into the first ring. This does mean that you're having to be careful where to screw the stuff in though (so that you don't end up being blocked by another screw further in!).

Another photo with some insulation on:

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If you have component speakers, you'll have to find a place to fit the crossover (unless you're running the speakers actively). In the first project (initial write up of this post), I just stuck mine to the left of the speaker. It just fitted in between the speaker and the window motor. At the time of writing the update (15/04/07), I have relocated the crossovers inside the car, and have put the tweeter in the A-pillar and not by the wing mirror (location of the OEM speaker tweeter). That's what the white wire is for in the photo a few up...

Another reason to stick the crossover in the door is so you can still use the OEM speaker wiring. I investigated puting new speaker wire to the door through from the cabin, but abandoned the idea 'cos it seemed just too tricky to get it through the connector in the rubber tubing connecting the wiring loom from the cabin to the door. That's what I now have. Will post something about that too

On the passenger side, you'll need to cut the speaker wire coming from the HU. This is the red and red/brown cable. Make sure you get the right pair because the other pair is the one that goes to the tweeter. If you look at the oem speaker terminals, you'll see that the pairs parallel out. Best thing is to grab a ohmeter to make sure you cut the wires going to the HU and not those going to the tweeter!

Installing the tweeter

Remove the triangular cover by the wing mirror. It just unclips from the top. If you're lucky, your tweeter may fit in place of the OEM one. The Rainbow tweeter unfortunately didn't fit behind the cover, so I resorted to drilling a hole in the cover and bolting the tweeter from outside. It does mean it sticks out now. If you do have to do that, make sure you place it high enough otherwise it will catch the dash when you close the door ;)

Then, it's time to connect it all up :)

Depending where the speaker connections are on the crossover... The pair wires on the left is the input from the HU (or amp). The one in the middle goes to the tweeter and the one on the right goes to the woofer which is next ;)

The last thing I added was the woofer. I connected a 15cm bit of speaker wire to the woofer's terminals before feeding the wire through the gap between the two rings of MDF making up the spacer. I fitted the woofer in place, marked up with a pen where the mounting holes were and pre-drilled holes to aid screwing the woofer in place. You can probably get away without it, but the last thing I wanted to do was slip with a screwdriver and make a nice big hole in the speaker :bigcry: ;)

And now, time to give it a try :woohoo:

I always like trying stuff at this stage. My strange logic goes like this: if I put everything back together before testing, it won't work 'cos I have forgotten to plug something in or tighten a bolt or missed a screw, etc. If you give it a try beforehand, it always works. I know, I know, I'm a little perverted in my thinking :D

If all's well, put the door card back on. It may be a bit tight towards the bottom right as the MDF spacer may just about be rubbing against the door card. The thinner the speaker and the thinner you can make the MDF spacer, the better, really.

And there you have it. All done - well, half of it. Now it's time for the driver's door... But grab a beer in the meantime :D

It's also nice having just done one side to compare sound by switching balance from one end to another. At that point, you'll decide whether you want to attack the driver door or not, depending on the improvement on the left hand side - but I wouldn't be surprised if you do ;)

The driver's side

This is pretty much identical to the passenger door. The only two things to remember are to disconnect the mirror joystick wiring loom (easily done as you have to remove the joystick to get to the torx screw) and the cable that powers the LED light by the door pin. This is easily forgotten as it's right at the top and the last thing you get to see when you remove the door card :)

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Nice one Xavier! As much as it's helpful I feel I'm gonna be leaving the original door speakers for some time and rely on the 6x9s for the extra oomph! They also seem a lot easier to install than ripping my doors apart. ;)

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Agreed' date=' good write up I'm sure some people will use this to the max.

However, think I'll investigate the direct replacement Rainbow 2ways. I'd rather have the tweeter mounted behind the cover, prefer the stealth look.[/quote']

Yeah, I tried fitting the rainbow tweet behind the grille bit, where the OEM one was. The rainboe tweeter is the same size, but due to the plastic surround, it won't fit. But then again, the advantage of having them on the outside is that you can angle them in the right direction. When the door's closed, the OEM tweet tends to point more towards the windscreen than back a bit.

As the tweets are highly directional in frequency response, I like having the passenger tweet pointed towards the driver and vice versa. Gives a good stereo soundstage. At least until I start playing with fibreglass and kickbuilds ;)

edit: the fibre kickbuilds isn't particularly dialup friendly either :)

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Great post Xavier!

I tried to fit some speakers on my last Fabia but gave up after much swearing and cursing of rivets.

Might just get a small sub in the vRS and put up with treble going through the standard speakers! - not that i'm into ice in a big way!

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Excellent step by step guide Xavier - as they say "a picture paints a thousand words".

Your MDF spacer as given me an idea to replace the nasty plastic spacers on my Octy and rigidly mount my speakers to the door frame - a job for the future I think.

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  • 2 months later...

Do the MK4 Golf Plastic Spacers that Autoleads do not fit in the Fabia (the spacers that let you stick 16.5cm component woofers in the doors of MK4 Golfs)?

It would save making MDF rings (although the MDF rings are going to sound better - probably lol).

Anyway, cheers for a good write-up.

I'll be using it as soon as I get my Fabia!

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Do the MK4 Golf Plastic Spacers that Autoleads do not fit in the Fabia (the spacers that let you stick 16.5cm component woofers in the doors of MK4 Golfs)?

It would save making MDF rings (although the MDF rings are going to sound better - probably lol).

Anyway' date=' cheers for a good write-up.

I'll be using it as soon as I get my Fabia![/quote']

Thats an interesting thought actually!!!...

may have to look into that as im too lazy/dont have facilitys to make mdf spacers..

ps.. good choice of replacement car!! youll have to change your forum name :D

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  • 3 weeks later...
If they're much more than 70mm, they probably won't fit.

This bit worries me a lot with mine. They're difficult to measure but I reckon they're about 70mm deep, or MORE!!! BUT, if I have to I'll bloody well chop out / remanufacture the grill on the door card to allow the woofer to poke through... :D

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Do you know of any tweeters that fit directly fit the Fabia - thinking of infinitys 6500csi

I'm hoping the tweeters with my infinities will hide behind the trim, but if not, well, I'm just gonna have to stick them to the outside. :D

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  • 8 months later...

Old thread, I know, but it's a very interesting one. Does everybody else still see the pics? For me thety don't show up so I'm missing a couple of "thousand words" in this story.

/Tiny Text-only

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I fitted "Ground Zero" 6.5" Components.

I used Autoleads spacer rings (from MK4 Golf), and the tweeters fit fine behind the grills.

I had a nice compliment at the briskoda dyno day @ jbs, so the sound must be pretty good!

Best thing was that the speakers were only 70 quid!

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I fitted "Ground Zero" 6.5" Components.

I used Autoleads spacer rings (from MK4 Golf)' date=' and the tweeters fit fine behind the grills.

I had a nice compliment at the briskoda dyno day @ jbs, so the sound must be pretty good!

Best thing was that the speakers were only 70 quid![/quote']

:cool:

They do sound very good, and im planning on a similar setup myself :D

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I fitted "Ground Zero" 6.5" Components.

I used Autoleads spacer rings (from MK4 Golf)' date=' and the tweeters fit fine behind the grills.[/quote']

Did you use component wiring then? or just the OEM wiring & the spacer ring? would this mean I wouldnt have to fabricate an MDF ring like the picture on the thread title shows?

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