Missing hatch speaker oddity.
Missing hatch speaker oddity. I just bought a 99 Z28. The headunit had issues and a speaker or 2 was blown. I replaced the headunit with a Pioneer 1.5 din model. All's good there. When I went to check the speakers, I found this...
Front door, stock
Rear seat, Kenwood
Rear hatch, driver's side speaker and mounting under the grill, gone, Passenger side speaker, stock and intact.
All existing speakers work, blown or otherwise.
There are 2 wires spliced inline right near the speaker plug and all that is just lying on the carpeting in the gutted speaker enclosure, black and red I think. I also believe the wires run back to or near the left rear seat speaker. I can pull them out and check if needed. There was a splice or two near that speaker I believe though.
Can anyone tell me if they have any idea what this was done for? Was it because of the stock headunit being used with aftermarket speakers? With the new Pioneer deck, can what was done be undone safely?
I would like to replace the rear hatch panel and get that speaker back in there and working with new aftermarket ones which is the primary reason I'm asking.
>> UPDATE <<
After extensive reading and pulling the wires out, I have a better idea of what the previous owner did. The sail speakers were replaced with Kenwoods. The wires going to each speaker were clipped. They then spliced into the dark blue wire on the driver side and the dark green wire on the passenger side(leaving the 2nd original wire going to each speaker hanging). Then they ran a red and black wire on each side of the car to the rear hatch speakers. I assume the passenger side also goes to the speaker even though the original speaker is still fully functional and in place. I do not know why they driver side rear hatch speaker was not only removed but the speaker mounting plastic completely cut out though. I do need to pop off the passenger hatch speaker trim panel and see if the wires are spliced the same way as they are on the driver side in the same basic place.
Knowing this, can anyone answer the following...
1. Why any of the original sail speaker wires were spliced into the new wires coming from the hatch speakers.
2. Why only 1 original wire was spliced and not both. This being an extension of the question above.
3. Since all remaining speakers are fully functional full range speakers, would it be safe to say I can replace the missing driver side hatch speaker and find it will also be functional?
4. If the missing hatch speaker is replaceable, would it be better to leave the entire system (Function-wise) as is, replace the damaged and missing speakers and have 6 full range speakers?
5. Or should I revert the entire system to the way it was, placing 6.5 subs in the sails and 4 inch full range in the rear hatch?
Front door, stock
Rear seat, Kenwood
Rear hatch, driver's side speaker and mounting under the grill, gone, Passenger side speaker, stock and intact.
All existing speakers work, blown or otherwise.
There are 2 wires spliced inline right near the speaker plug and all that is just lying on the carpeting in the gutted speaker enclosure, black and red I think. I also believe the wires run back to or near the left rear seat speaker. I can pull them out and check if needed. There was a splice or two near that speaker I believe though.
Can anyone tell me if they have any idea what this was done for? Was it because of the stock headunit being used with aftermarket speakers? With the new Pioneer deck, can what was done be undone safely?
I would like to replace the rear hatch panel and get that speaker back in there and working with new aftermarket ones which is the primary reason I'm asking.
>> UPDATE <<
After extensive reading and pulling the wires out, I have a better idea of what the previous owner did. The sail speakers were replaced with Kenwoods. The wires going to each speaker were clipped. They then spliced into the dark blue wire on the driver side and the dark green wire on the passenger side(leaving the 2nd original wire going to each speaker hanging). Then they ran a red and black wire on each side of the car to the rear hatch speakers. I assume the passenger side also goes to the speaker even though the original speaker is still fully functional and in place. I do not know why they driver side rear hatch speaker was not only removed but the speaker mounting plastic completely cut out though. I do need to pop off the passenger hatch speaker trim panel and see if the wires are spliced the same way as they are on the driver side in the same basic place.
Knowing this, can anyone answer the following...
1. Why any of the original sail speaker wires were spliced into the new wires coming from the hatch speakers.
2. Why only 1 original wire was spliced and not both. This being an extension of the question above.
3. Since all remaining speakers are fully functional full range speakers, would it be safe to say I can replace the missing driver side hatch speaker and find it will also be functional?
4. If the missing hatch speaker is replaceable, would it be better to leave the entire system (Function-wise) as is, replace the damaged and missing speakers and have 6 full range speakers?
5. Or should I revert the entire system to the way it was, placing 6.5 subs in the sails and 4 inch full range in the rear hatch?
Last edited by Elthesh; Jan 5, 2010 at 02:40 AM.
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 11,328
Likes: 346
From: Jacksonville, FL (originally from Toronto Canada)
1. The sail panel subs get only low-pass filtered signal. When we have someone who insists they want full-range speakers in the sail panels, we often recommend disconnecting the hatch speakers and pulling those wires forward to the sail panels to provide full-range signal. It sounds like the previous owner did their own ghetto version of this modification.
2. Don't know - must have been done by someone who really didn't know what they were doing.
3. Hard to say without seeing the condition of the wiring. It is possible.
4. Definitely not. The reason we recommend pulling the hatch wiring forward to the sail panels is that you don't need the hatch speakers if you're running full-range speakers in the sail panels. That puts far too much sound coming from behind you.
5. Depends... are you satisfied with the sound of the Monsoon system or do you want something more? I suspect that you would like the Monsoon original setup better than what's there now. But if you're doing a bunch of rewiring anyway, you might consider an upgrade including your own amp and speakers.
2. Don't know - must have been done by someone who really didn't know what they were doing.
3. Hard to say without seeing the condition of the wiring. It is possible.
4. Definitely not. The reason we recommend pulling the hatch wiring forward to the sail panels is that you don't need the hatch speakers if you're running full-range speakers in the sail panels. That puts far too much sound coming from behind you.
5. Depends... are you satisfied with the sound of the Monsoon system or do you want something more? I suspect that you would like the Monsoon original setup better than what's there now. But if you're doing a bunch of rewiring anyway, you might consider an upgrade including your own amp and speakers.
Hmmm, knowing all this now... For the time being, I believe I will restore the speaker setup to its original form. With the oddball 5th speaker, it isn't even setup up properly for the hackjob that was done. The only disappointing thing is the fact that the previous owner hacked out the driver rear speaker mounting enclosure. No biggie I suppose, one new left rear hatch trim/speaker panel and a bunch of new speakers will have things back to normal.
At least with the wiring, the only splicing done is easily fixable and since the rear seat speakers now have a "standard" set of speaker plugs installed, I can just reuse that for the new replacement subs there.
They didn't even tape up the unused 2nd original wire. Got a shock from that last night when I bumped it. Such a weird hackjob. Inline splices in the rear hatch, twist tied then heat shrinkwrap on one set of wires, a twist nut on the other set of wires and one unsed wire hanging with exposed wire. Like 3 or 4 different people worked on it. All fixable though. Fun times ahead.
At least with the wiring, the only splicing done is easily fixable and since the rear seat speakers now have a "standard" set of speaker plugs installed, I can just reuse that for the new replacement subs there.
They didn't even tape up the unused 2nd original wire. Got a shock from that last night when I bumped it. Such a weird hackjob. Inline splices in the rear hatch, twist tied then heat shrinkwrap on one set of wires, a twist nut on the other set of wires and one unsed wire hanging with exposed wire. Like 3 or 4 different people worked on it. All fixable though. Fun times ahead.
