X System Update III: Install Day One

Me and Zachary went to Chance’s house around noon today for day one of the install. Soonafter, the X was backed in to the garage and we were ready to start in.

Chance and Julie had some errands to run, so they took off and we started in on the rear speakers. Within a few minutes, the Clif Designs 6×9’s were in place with the speaker cables run. The 6×9’s were a little too deep, so I had to remove the factory deadening material from behind the speaker locations. Because of the depth, the metal panel that I mounted them to buckled a little when I really torqued the bolts down. But in the end all was well.

Chance returned just after I had finished mounting the second of the two 6×9’s. He then pulled out some Dynamat he had left over from his install and we proceeded to cover the wheel well and floor area where the Stealthbox would be installed (thanks Chance!). In a jiffy the Dynamat was laid down, the rear panels were installed and the Stealthbox was mounted. The Dynamat will greatly reduce vibrations and other noise caused by the subwoofer firing toward the floor.

Next we zeroed in on the passenger side front speakers. There is a 6.5″ driver in the door and a 1″ tweeter in the window pillar panel. Within a few minutes we had the door panel, window pillar panel and glove compartment removed. And….

ROADBLOCK. As it turns out, the factory 6.5″ speakers in the ‘02 Xterra are attached to a 2.5″ spacer ring. The spacer ring prevents the speaker magnet from interfering with the window operation. When I say “attached” unfortunately I don’t mean “with screws” I mean “machine attached”. After discovering that the Clif Designs 6.5″ drivers would in fact interfere with the window, Chance recommended fabricating a custom spacer ring out of MDF. He just happened to have a full sheet of MDF and just happened to have all the necessary tools to do the job. He’s cool like that.

It took a little time to get the spacer ring the right size and cut in way that wouldn’t cause problems when the door was put back together. But the passenger side spacer is done.

This takes us up to probably 4:30pm when he and family had to head out of the evening. Also understanding Allison was stuck in the house sick all week, it wouldn’t have been a good diplomatic move for me to stay and press on. So we packed up and returned home around 5:00pm. It was also a logical stopping point because I have some homework. I need to figure out the best way to disassemble my dash without destroying things. Without the dash sufficient dismantled it will be very difficult or impossible to run the new speaker cable to the door speakers. And the new speaker cable has to be run before the speakers can be installed.

Lots more to do, but it was a good day. Thanks again Chance!

FYI: I took a bunch of pics with my digital camera that I had intended on posting, but my camera gave up the ghost! My cheapie digital finally died. Now I need to buy a card-reader to get the pictures off. Sheesh.