Adding extra insulation and wiring to front doors of Fabia

**tfboy** · 15-04-2007, 19:34

This is quite fiddly. It helps having two people so one can hold something wilst the other disconnects. I did it on my own, but it would be easier IMHO if someone's around to give a hand

Adding acoustic insulation

First, remove the door (see this thread).

Now disconnect the main speaker by the connector. Also disconnect the tweeter cabling.

Remove the two filling-in rubber caps at the top, either side of the inner door sheet. These are inspection/access holes to remove the window.

Lower the window so that you see the retaining clamps line up with the inspection holes, temporarily reconnecting the window switch.

Loosen the 10mm window clamps and remove the window.

I then decided to lower the window a bit more, placing the clamps roughly in the middle of the window travel.

Disconnect the the three wiring looms that go to the window motor controller.

Remove the load of 10mm bolts holding the inside door skin (silver metal plate).

Start prising the door plate from the door frame. It will be slightly stuck on with the seal. If you can get a hand behind, it helps to inclip the cable loom retaining clips by squeezing the spungloaded sides.

This is where I found it gets quite tricky because the wiring loom holds the inner door skin in place. The top of the sheet is held in place with the window guide rails. At the door handle end, you have the locking pin rod which has to be rotated in such a way you can pass it back out of the hole in the plate. Be careful as you maneuvre the plate around: the end of the bendy rod thing connects to a plastic thingy which goes up and down (raising and lowering the pin). This is quite prone to bending fatigue as I managed to wear out the thin ring holding the pin rod in place.

Once you've freed the locking pin rod from the inner door sheet, you need to disconnect the connector that goes to the locking mechanism. This will be a nightmare until you figure out how to do it I broke mine in fustration! Fortunately, there's the identical connector under the bonnet. Pop it up and go to the box at the extreme top left (behind the coolant reservoir). The connector needs to be pushed further in, then press on the little plastic clip overhang thing then push the connector off. Get some practice here or you'll be cursing like I was with the door one!

Once disconnected, you can start feeding the door cable loom back out through the holes, eventually freeing up the inner door sheet.

You can see that Skoda kindly put some in at the factory

Also, you have the side impact bars which do tend to get in the way.

When I did mine, I purchased some acoustic sheets with a sticky back surface. I did think about expanding foam, but thought the risk was too great of the expanded version getting in the way of the window travel so decided to stick with the sheet version. There are lots of products out there. I happened to have some good stuff bought off Vrs_Si some time ago. Other products are dynamat, dynamat extreme, brown bread, flashing tape, etc. Also, having sheets which you can cut to shape help getting the door covered and working around the impact bars.

About half a dozen layers later...

Job's a goodun

Whilst I had the door taken apart, I thought I'd stick in some better chunkier speaker wiring. Of course, this isn't worthwhile unless you want to a) run some seriously well amplified aftermarket speakers or b) don't want to use the OEM wiring if you're planning on adding amps and other speakers at a later date. In my case, it was both.

Adding dedicated speaker wiring

I started with the passenger side door

I'm sorry but I don't have any photos of this. To be honest, it's so tight and tricky that I don't know how I could helpfully document it. If anyone wants to do it, by all means send me a PM and we'll do it together. But I'm not going to take my car apart for some photos. Sorry, I'm selfish

Actually, be prepared for lots of cursing, and when you've submitted your howto film to the BBFC and received an 18 certificate, be preapred to swear some more and get that exclusive X-rated non-pornographic qualification. In case you haven't guessed, I swore a LOT here.

Whilst the theory is incredibly simple, the practice is not

The issue is how well these cars are put together which is a good thing of course

If you remove the rubber gaiter thingy between the car body and door to expose the wiring loom, you'll notice that the entire area "cut out" is filled with connectors and wiring. There's no gap to push through some extra cabling.

Remove the glove box to give you the best access from the inside of the car.

Disconnect the four connectors from the door side. There are little lugs you push in at middle of the "external edges".

Gently remove the white surround that the gaiter fits onto. Be careful not to break the retaining catches. If you move it around a bit (it should have some slack not the gaiter is no longer holding it in place), you can see the four retaining catches, two either side, one at the top and bottom.

To find the space for the extra wiring, the trick (many many thanks to Ross sharing his "secret". You are a star

) is to disconnect the female connector from the outside (already done), then disconnect the male connector from the inside, leaving a gap. Disconnecting this is a real PITA. I decided to use the connector at the bottom as this is the one that has the best access from the inside of the car. The top one isn't accessible at all because of the interal hole on the car body

To remove the connector, you need to place two thin edges either side of it to move away the retaining lugs holding it in place. I don't know what to suggest here. I ended up using two very thin flat-bladed screwdrivers. My biggest gripe was as I released one side, as soon as I attacked the other, the first one would click back in place. In other words, there's no room to "wobble" it out: you have to release both catches at the same time and pull the connector straight back.

Once you have entirely removed the connector, feed the female connector (door side) through into the car body, remembering to first feed through the white plastic ring onto which the rubber gaiter fits. The connector has a very tight space to get through the hole left by the removed male connector, but it will squeeze past. You may have to pull through the wiring loom to free up a few extra mm. Once through, pass through your new wiring. I started from the door side and fed into the car. I guess you can do it either way.

Once you have enough wiring to go through to the speaker location and wherever you need to connect up to your amp or crossover filter, cut the ends off.

Now reconnect the OEM wiring loom connectors on the inside of the car.

Important note: When I initiall put the cable in, I just had it coming out through the speaker hole and connected it up to the speaker. Be careful if you chose this route because your speaker cable will most likely snag against the window clamp when it comes down. Fortunately, I tried before putting everything back together again, and the cable was caught by the window as it came down.

The better and safer option IMHO is to copy the OEM cable route: make a small slit in the rubber grommet where the OEM loom comes through the door and feed the speaker wire through there. I then left a slight gap in the padding I used between the two rings and popped the cable through leaving just 50-60mm which then connects straight up with the speaker terminals.

Click the rubber gaiter and the white fixing clip back against the car body and you're done

Driver's side door

I found this side a lot harder, because you have a big chunk of the wiring loom and fuse box and relay board in the way.

First is to remove the trim around the pedal box. For this, take a look at Stu's guide for Cruise Control on Fabia-vrs.com - Home Page for pics and steps (it's in the Technical Info section)

Remove the fuse box from the side by unscrewing the two big torx screws. The idea here is to move as much stuff away from the corner where the wiring loom goes into the door to free up as much space as possible. It's a lot harder here IMHO than the passenger side because of everything in the way.

There were a few tie wraps holding the main wiring loom going to the fuse box. I cut these to slacken it up as much as possible. Of course, do NOT pull too hard. There's a lot of high-amperage wiring in this area!

Also, there's a suspended relay box which can be unclipped on the right hand side and partially moved out of the way. The name of the game here is really to make as much room as possible to work in.

Once you're ready to go, it's pretty much the same process as it was for the other side. Again, I decided to use the bottom connector as that was what appeared to have best access for unclipping the sodding male connector on the inside of the car.

Conclusion

So after shedding all my skin clean off my knuckles, I'll say it was worth it. If you tap the front doors, they now sound as if they're made out of concrete and not tinny hollow like the rear ones are. The bass response is vastly improved and the overall sound quality is much better. The acoustic insulation also reduces road noise too

As for the wiring, well, it's a personal choice whether to do it or not. You can of course tap into the OEM wiring and save you the hassle of fiddling around removing those connectors. But as I've decided to run a fair bit of power down to the speakers in the doors and I'd rather have the wiring on a dedicated route, separate from the rest of the OEM wiring, it will make future ICE modding a lot easier.

Lummox · 15-04-2007, 19:54

Here are a few pics from my installation on Tom's old Fabia sometime ago, explains the above in picture form.

This is the white plug disconnected from the body and reconnected insdie the car thus creating a gap to run the wiring though

And a few shots of the wiring into the door.

**tfboy** · 15-04-2007, 20:08

Thanks Ross

pstar2002 · 09-07-2007, 13:46

did you put any soundproofing on the inner door skin? have you any pictures of this?

cheers

faboka vrs · 09-07-2007, 13:59

Sound deaeden my doors a while ago. Done both the outer skin and the back of the door plate. Used flashing tape and bodyline. My doors are like bricks on the outside

Makes a noticable difference to the sound.

Spenser · 26-09-2007, 07:32

I just removed the front door carriers yesterday. It was quite easy by following this guide by tfboy

But one thing caused problems, and it was not mentioned in the guide. In my Fabia there was one plastic thingie which connects the lock mechanism to carrier plate (check the attachment). It was really hard to remove. I broke it eventually, and I believe the correct way to take it off would have required to remove the door handle and then drill the pop-rivet which holds it in place. I was able to remove it from carrier plate by pressing off those three lugs which can be seen in the image also.

What is the purpose of this thingie anyway? I guess it has something to do with alarm system, and it seems that tfboy's fabia doesn't have it because it wasn't mentioned in the guide? Maybe somebody who has ETOS could do me a favor and check the OEM# and price for me?

Lummox · 26-09-2007, 07:35

All it does is hold the lock onto the carrier for assy at the factory.

I punch out the rivets, take the plastic bit, throw it in the bin and put a little tape over the holes.

Spenser · 26-09-2007, 08:27

Thanks Lummox. No wonder I couldn't find any use for it.

Wasted about an hour to try to figure out how to take it off and cursing if I had broke something important.

I'll follow your lead, and throw it in the bin.

**tfboy** · 26-09-2007, 09:59

I also wondered about that, but feared it did have a use (which I couldn't find).

If I take my doors apart next time, I won't bother being overly careful and not bending and braking that bit

I agree with you, it's a real pain bending the prong thing on the left just enough to get it to slide back in the slot without breaking the whole lot. The door pin rod is also a pain rotating to get it in and out

15-04-2007, 19:34	#1
tfboy C+ à Paris! Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Tilehurst, Berkshire Posts: 6,133 Thanks: 13 Thanked 45 Times in 39 Posts	Adding extra insulation and wiring to front doors of Fabia This is quite fiddly. It helps having two people so one can hold something wilst the other disconnects. I did it on my own, but it would be easier IMHO if someone's around to give a hand Adding acoustic insulation First, remove the door (see this thread). Now disconnect the main speaker by the connector. Also disconnect the tweeter cabling. Remove the two filling-in rubber caps at the top, either side of the inner door sheet. These are inspection/access holes to remove the window. Lower the window so that you see the retaining clamps line up with the inspection holes, temporarily reconnecting the window switch. Loosen the 10mm window clamps and remove the window. I then decided to lower the window a bit more, placing the clamps roughly in the middle of the window travel. Disconnect the the three wiring looms that go to the window motor controller. Remove the load of 10mm bolts holding the inside door skin (silver metal plate). Start prising the door plate from the door frame. It will be slightly stuck on with the seal. If you can get a hand behind, it helps to inclip the cable loom retaining clips by squeezing the spungloaded sides. This is where I found it gets quite tricky because the wiring loom holds the inner door skin in place. The top of the sheet is held in place with the window guide rails. At the door handle end, you have the locking pin rod which has to be rotated in such a way you can pass it back out of the hole in the plate. Be careful as you maneuvre the plate around: the end of the bendy rod thing connects to a plastic thingy which goes up and down (raising and lowering the pin). This is quite prone to bending fatigue as I managed to wear out the thin ring holding the pin rod in place. Once you've freed the locking pin rod from the inner door sheet, you need to disconnect the connector that goes to the locking mechanism. This will be a nightmare until you figure out how to do it I broke mine in fustration! Fortunately, there's the identical connector under the bonnet. Pop it up and go to the box at the extreme top left (behind the coolant reservoir). The connector needs to be pushed further in, then press on the little plastic clip overhang thing then push the connector off. Get some practice here or you'll be cursing like I was with the door one! Once disconnected, you can start feeding the door cable loom back out through the holes, eventually freeing up the inner door sheet. You can see that Skoda kindly put some in at the factory Also, you have the side impact bars which do tend to get in the way. When I did mine, I purchased some acoustic sheets with a sticky back surface. I did think about expanding foam, but thought the risk was too great of the expanded version getting in the way of the window travel so decided to stick with the sheet version. There are lots of products out there. I happened to have some good stuff bought off Vrs_Si some time ago. Other products are dynamat, dynamat extreme, brown bread, flashing tape, etc. Also, having sheets which you can cut to shape help getting the door covered and working around the impact bars. About half a dozen layers later... Job's a goodun Whilst I had the door taken apart, I thought I'd stick in some better chunkier speaker wiring. Of course, this isn't worthwhile unless you want to a) run some seriously well amplified aftermarket speakers or b) don't want to use the OEM wiring if you're planning on adding amps and other speakers at a later date. In my case, it was both. Adding dedicated speaker wiring I started with the passenger side door I'm sorry but I don't have any photos of this. To be honest, it's so tight and tricky that I don't know how I could helpfully document it. If anyone wants to do it, by all means send me a PM and we'll do it together. But I'm not going to take my car apart for some photos. Sorry, I'm selfish Actually, be prepared for lots of cursing, and when you've submitted your howto film to the BBFC and received an 18 certificate, be preapred to swear some more and get that exclusive X-rated non-pornographic qualification. In case you haven't guessed, I swore a LOT here. Whilst the theory is incredibly simple, the practice is not The issue is how well these cars are put together which is a good thing of course If you remove the rubber gaiter thingy between the car body and door to expose the wiring loom, you'll notice that the entire area "cut out" is filled with connectors and wiring. There's no gap to push through some extra cabling. Remove the glove box to give you the best access from the inside of the car. Disconnect the four connectors from the door side. There are little lugs you push in at middle of the "external edges". Gently remove the white surround that the gaiter fits onto. Be careful not to break the retaining catches. If you move it around a bit (it should have some slack not the gaiter is no longer holding it in place), you can see the four retaining catches, two either side, one at the top and bottom. To find the space for the extra wiring, the trick (many many thanks to Ross sharing his "secret". You are a star ) is to disconnect the female connector from the outside (already done), then disconnect the male connector from the inside, leaving a gap. Disconnecting this is a real PITA. I decided to use the connector at the bottom as this is the one that has the best access from the inside of the car. The top one isn't accessible at all because of the interal hole on the car body To remove the connector, you need to place two thin edges either side of it to move away the retaining lugs holding it in place. I don't know what to suggest here. I ended up using two very thin flat-bladed screwdrivers. My biggest gripe was as I released one side, as soon as I attacked the other, the first one would click back in place. In other words, there's no room to "wobble" it out: you have to release both catches at the same time and pull the connector straight back. Once you have entirely removed the connector, feed the female connector (door side) through into the car body, remembering to first feed through the white plastic ring onto which the rubber gaiter fits. The connector has a very tight space to get through the hole left by the removed male connector, but it will squeeze past. You may have to pull through the wiring loom to free up a few extra mm. Once through, pass through your new wiring. I started from the door side and fed into the car. I guess you can do it either way. Once you have enough wiring to go through to the speaker location and wherever you need to connect up to your amp or crossover filter, cut the ends off. Now reconnect the OEM wiring loom connectors on the inside of the car. Important note: When I initiall put the cable in, I just had it coming out through the speaker hole and connected it up to the speaker. Be careful if you chose this route because your speaker cable will most likely snag against the window clamp when it comes down. Fortunately, I tried before putting everything back together again, and the cable was caught by the window as it came down. The better and safer option IMHO is to copy the OEM cable route: make a small slit in the rubber grommet where the OEM loom comes through the door and feed the speaker wire through there. I then left a slight gap in the padding I used between the two rings and popped the cable through leaving just 50-60mm which then connects straight up with the speaker terminals. Click the rubber gaiter and the white fixing clip back against the car body and you're done Driver's side door I found this side a lot harder, because you have a big chunk of the wiring loom and fuse box and relay board in the way. First is to remove the trim around the pedal box. For this, take a look at Stu's guide for Cruise Control on Fabia-vrs.com - Home Page for pics and steps (it's in the Technical Info section) Remove the fuse box from the side by unscrewing the two big torx screws. The idea here is to move as much stuff away from the corner where the wiring loom goes into the door to free up as much space as possible. It's a lot harder here IMHO than the passenger side because of everything in the way. There were a few tie wraps holding the main wiring loom going to the fuse box. I cut these to slacken it up as much as possible. Of course, do NOT pull too hard. There's a lot of high-amperage wiring in this area! Also, there's a suspended relay box which can be unclipped on the right hand side and partially moved out of the way. The name of the game here is really to make as much room as possible to work in. Once you're ready to go, it's pretty much the same process as it was for the other side. Again, I decided to use the bottom connector as that was what appeared to have best access for unclipping the sodding male connector on the inside of the car. Conclusion So after shedding all my skin clean off my knuckles, I'll say it was worth it. If you tap the front doors, they now sound as if they're made out of concrete and not tinny hollow like the rear ones are. The bass response is vastly improved and the overall sound quality is much better. The acoustic insulation also reduces road noise too As for the wiring, well, it's a personal choice whether to do it or not. You can of course tap into the OEM wiring and save you the hassle of fiddling around removing those connectors. But as I've decided to run a fair bit of power down to the speakers in the doors and I'd rather have the wiring on a dedicated route, separate from the rest of the OEM wiring, it will make future ICE modding a lot easier. __________________ Xavier Last edited by tfboy; 16-04-2007 at 17:44.

15-04-2007, 19:54	#2
Lummox Hairy Yeti Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Newport Pagnell Posts: 21,309 Thanks: 18 Thanked 557 Times in 487 Posts	Re: Adding extra insulation and wiring to front doors of Fabia Here are a few pics from my installation on Tom's old Fabia sometime ago, explains the above in picture form. This is the white plug disconnected from the body and reconnected insdie the car thus creating a gap to run the wiring though And a few shots of the wiring into the door. __________________ Unit 18 now open Servicing, repairs, modifications you name it we do it. Cupra console bushes at special price, PM for a very competitive quote.

15-04-2007, 20:08	#3
tfboy C+ à Paris! Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Tilehurst, Berkshire Posts: 6,133 Thanks: 13 Thanked 45 Times in 39 Posts	Re: Adding extra insulation and wiring to front doors of Fabia Thanks Ross __________________ Xavier

09-07-2007, 13:46	#4
pstar2002 Briskodian Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 23 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Adding extra insulation and wiring to front doors of Fabia did you put any soundproofing on the inner door skin? have you any pictures of this? cheers

09-07-2007, 13:59	#5
faboka vrs Briskodian Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Merseyside Posts: 5,911 Thanks: 11 Thanked 32 Times in 32 Posts	Re: Adding extra insulation and wiring to front doors of Fabia Sound deaeden my doors a while ago. Done both the outer skin and the back of the door plate. Used flashing tape and bodyline. My doors are like bricks on the outside Makes a noticable difference to the sound. __________________ John Its small, black, gets laughed at, makes 125bhp at the wrong wheels, does 50mpg and makes a cracking Sponge Cake

26-09-2007, 07:35	#7
Lummox Hairy Yeti Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Newport Pagnell Posts: 21,309 Thanks: 18 Thanked 557 Times in 487 Posts	Re: Adding extra insulation and wiring to front doors of Fabia All it does is hold the lock onto the carrier for assy at the factory. I punch out the rivets, take the plastic bit, throw it in the bin and put a little tape over the holes. __________________ Unit 18 now open Servicing, repairs, modifications you name it we do it. Cupra console bushes at special price, PM for a very competitive quote.

26-09-2007, 08:27	#8
Spenser Briskodian Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Finland, Turku Posts: 16 Thanks: 3 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Re: Adding extra insulation and wiring to front doors of Fabia Thanks Lummox. No wonder I couldn't find any use for it. Wasted about an hour to try to figure out how to take it off and cursing if I had broke something important. I'll follow your lead, and throw it in the bin.

26-09-2007, 09:59	#9
tfboy C+ à Paris! Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: Tilehurst, Berkshire Posts: 6,133 Thanks: 13 Thanked 45 Times in 39 Posts	Re: Adding extra insulation and wiring to front doors of Fabia I also wondered about that, but feared it did have a use (which I couldn't find). If I take my doors apart next time, I won't bother being overly careful and not bending and braking that bit I agree with you, it's a real pain bending the prong thing on the left just enough to get it to slide back in the slot without breaking the whole lot. The door pin rod is also a pain rotating to get it in and out __________________ Xavier

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