Speakers, Part 2

Driver's door complete, passenger door was much quicker and easier. Imagine that, once you have figured out what needs to be done, doing it again is a piece of cake. Only thing is I forgot to write down how the speaker wires are connected. If they both end up being connected the same way, then they should be in phase. If not, they will be out of phase. I wonder if I will be able to tell? Another thing: the locking tab on the speaker connector has to be pulled up, not pushed down like all the other connectors.

Now I look at the speakers in the back and, shit, this looks like a huge pain in the ass. There are no screws in evidence, except for the seat belt bolts. Google turns up Club Cab Rear Speaker Install, that gives me a couple of clues, like just pull on the back panel above the rear seat backrest and it will come off. It takes some forceful tugging, but it does indeed come loose. That gives us access to two (2!) Philips head screws that hold the side panel on. The screws come out but the panel is still firmly installed. More forceful tugging separates it from the truck. 

At least one big fat Torx screw that holds the front seat belt needs to be removed. I used a socket that I bought a zillion years ago when I did the brakes on my 1989 Chevy Celebrity. I knew I needed a big one, but I didn't know which size so I bought four. The one I needed now was still in it's shrink wrap packaging. I had never needed it before.

Once the panel is off you are home free, so to speak. The speaker is revealed and it's fairly straight forward to replace it. The hole is just slight smaller than the speaker, so if you center it, the holes for the mounting screws will intersect the speaker hole, so I offset it just a tad, maybe an eighth of an inch, and I only used 3 of the 4 screw holes. The screw hole at the bottom edge of the speaker missed the sheet metal completely, but the edge of the speaker caught the edge of the hole, so it's mounted good and solid, though not mathematically perfect. I sealed the speakers to the body with some old silicon bathroom caulk I had lying around. It shouldn't make any difference, Dodge didn't make much effort to seal off these speakers.

Putting the side panels back was a colossal pain. There are a bunch of places that need to be engaged. Some of them just slide together, but some will only go together if you hold your mouth right, and that takes some doing. But I eventually got all the little hooks and whatnot engaged and got the panels back in. Only problem was the plastic pushpin on upper rear of the drivers side panel. That one did not want to go. Get it all lined up and push and it folds over. I eventually lost it down one of the holes in the body and decided to just leave it. Now that everything is done there doesn't seem to be any difference between the drivers side, which is missing a pin, and the passenger side, which isn't.

Curious thing is I was only able to work on this project for about an hour at a time before I was tired out and needed a break. The work wasn't that hard, not like breaking rocks in the hot sun. I think it was because I was using muscles I normally don't use, and contorting myself into positions I don't get into.