MG-Cars.net

Welcome to our resource for MG Car Information.

Recommendations

Parts

MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG MGB Technical - Fitting decent speakers

Driving my car every day brings up the need for me to have good speakers in it. The ones in the doors just dont cut the mustard. Id like to get some 6x9s into the car somewhere, and I was wondering what other people do? I was thinking either making a box for on the front of each wheel arch and putting one on each side that way. Either that or drilling holes in the boot floor and covering them in mesh and mounting the speakers under there, so the back of them is down where the spare wheel is. Anyway, lets hear some suggestions! Thanks.
Ross Kelly

You have a GT?
C Holm

Hi

What I did with my 70 mgb roadster was to cut a couple of holes in the rear bulkhead between the trunk and passenger compartment and install some speakers there. 2 problems. The hollow sound of the trunk and I had to be careful when loading the trunk that I didn't put a hole in the speaker. Would have been handy if the trunk lock got screwed up!!

With my current 74.5 MGB I have install 6" speakers in the front side foot wells. These are protected by the inner fender and have note create any trouble at all for years.
In addition I have 6x9's in box's placed on the rear deck behind the seats. The taneau cover hides them and if I like I can put them up on the cover and turn them towards where ever we happen to be hanging out.

Also I have Fiero seats (too many speakers so had to add an amp). 80+ MPH and I can hear every beat over the sound of the wind and the V8 motor.
Hope it helps

Bruce
Bruce Mills

Ross, here's what I did: I put a pair of 6.5 inch round Alpine speakers under the dash on each side. To do this, I removed the fibreboard under-dash covers (they were deteriorating anyway) and replaced them with 1/8th inch thick black plastic panel (it has the similar crackle pattern on it that the console in my 73 has). I then made holes big enough for the speakers as an experiment, and it worked out great. Then, I mounted a 150W 2/1 channel Pioneer amplifier under the top face of the passenger footwell compartment. I configured it so that I am using the single channel output, and mounted an 8-inch Cerwin Vega subwoofer in the battery box that is no longer used now that I have a single 12V system. To seal off the battery box, I used 5/8inch thick fibre board that I coated in fibreglass to sheild it from the elements, and put some insulation into the box, then mounted my speaker. The enclosure needed to be made air tight. The result sounds great. The two 6.5 inchers are nicely complemented by the subwoofer. This system was quite inexpensive.
I hid my stereo by making a face plate out of the standard MG blanking plate, which flips down when I need to use the stereo controls, but flips up when not in use. It doesn't even look like there is a stereo in the car when you look at it. If you would like photos, I'd be happy to provide them.

Erick
Erick Vesterback

In my GT I've got a couple of 15cm speakers in my doors and a 10 inch sub in the boot.

1) I removed the spare wheel (had a puncture anyway) and
replaced with a can of tyre weld.
2) Cut a circular hole for the sub in the plywood shelf.
3) Screwed the amp and sub to the shelf
4) Covered the whole shelf in black acoustic cloth.

I plan to build a box around the sub on the underside to create an airtight enclosure but it sounds good at the moment as it's acting like a baffle board.
I've heard that people also build boxes to house 6 x 9's that fit in the rear recesses behind the arches in the GT's so I was thinking of doing that, but I could actually add them on to my shelf as well. The only downside being that you have to be careful what you transport in your boot area so you don't damage the speakers.

It's all easily returned back to stock too as all I would need to do it buy a piece of ply for the shelf and cut to size.

Cheers,
Matt
MattWilkinson

I have a little bit of experience with woodwork, but Im not a master craftsman by any stretch of the imagination. I love watching those programs on discovery where they show you people making things you cant make! They always make it look so easy. Anyway Im getting sidetracked. I like the idea of making a wedge shaped box for either side of the boot where the recess is behind the wheel arch, and cutting the boot floor so that I can still lift it up. I might get the jigsaw out this weekend and have a play with a few boards and see what I can come up with.

Erick- If you could take some pics of your setup for me, that would be great. Thanks!
Ross Kelly

Matt get yourself to maplin and buy a speaker grill to protect your sub (see piccy).


S Longstaff

Jesus! OK thats a bit excessive for a car the size of an MG for me. I'd be happy with a couple of 6x9s run off the head unit, so I reckon the best thing to do would be to cut holes in the boot floor and mount them there from behind and put a solid flat mesh over them. Ive still to get the speakers though but Ill pick them up soon.
Ross Kelly

Ross,
It seems to me that you could get some unwanted vibration and harmonics equaling poor sound quality by mounting them on a big piece of sheetmetal like that. Maybe it's stiff enough, but I'd also hesitate to cut holes in the floor like that; just my opinion. Best, Joe
Joe Ullman

I recently fit a pair of 6" Rockford Fosgate Punch speakers in the doors. The holes in the door cards had to be enlarged and reinforced with 1/16" thick fibre board to accomodate the mounting holes in the places where I wasn't able to drill through to the metal of the door frame. I glued speaker clips in these spots to act as captive nuts for the speaker mounting screws. I ended up with two horizontal screws securing the speakers to the door metal, and four additional securing the speaker and grill to the doorcard. I used DynaMat on the doorcards for vibration reduction. (I think this is usually used on metal surfaces, but it seems to work fine. My car stereo puts out 64 X4 Watts RMS - the two front channels power the door speakers, the two rear channels feed a mono subwoofer amp in the trunk, mounted to the trunk wall under the tonneau deck. That amp feeds a Bazooka subwoofer that sits on the "parcel shelf" behind the seats in the passenger compartment. Positioned correctly, it allows the hood to be lowered into place without trouble. I use quick disconnects on the subwoofer so that is removable. The mono power amp is switchable, and feeds from an aux power wire in the radio harness. I have relays in both circuits, one each for the radio and the amp. Use of the subwoofer may eliminate the need for 6X9's behind the seat. The setup is loud and with low distortion, but the car is noisy enough (exhaust and road noise) where an audiophile would be probably be disappointed. Okay for my purposes, though. Only trade-off is that you lose most of the litle storage space the shelf offers. Depending on the model, You can use the Bazooka in a passive configuration with a low-pass filter without a separate amp, but I feel that the results are disappointing. If I'm not mistaken, you can also buy Bazooka subs with built-in amps and low-pass filters, an option I didn't take bacause I'd already bought the passive model. Live and Learn...
Greg Peek

Hi Ross:

Here is the left speaker:


Erick Vesterback

Here is the right speaker and the amplifier:


Erick Vesterback

Here is how the console looks with the cover flipped up:


Erick Vesterback

And here is the cover flipped down to expose the head unit:


Erick Vesterback

Here is the rear deck showing my sub - although I had forgotten that your car is a GT, so this won't really help you. In case others might like to do the same to their roadster, the open spaces of the right battery box was enclosed using particle board with a coating of fibreglass on the outside faces, and I made plastic discs to block the two holes in the metal sides of the battery boxes, sealed with a silicone based adhesive. Each side has 2 discs with a bolt compressing them to the metal. This is all hidden from view in the photo, but if the car were jacked up, the box would be visible from underneath. I have a new piece of carpet laying over the sub and that seems to do a good job of keeping out the dust and debris. I consciously avoid putting any objects in the rear shelf area to not let anything sit on the sub, but I may someday get a substantial grill to put over the sub to protect it. This setup seems to work nicely.

I am a little ashamed of how dirty the floor carpets are in this photo. Honest - I usually keep it fairly clean!

Erick


Erick Vesterback

Thanks for that, Erick. Its given me plen ty of food for thought. Im going to take a look in my car and see what my options are based on this info.

Joe- I meant cutting the wooden boot floor which sits on top of the spare wheel. I have a GT. Sorry I should have specified.
Ross Kelly

Ross, this is how I went about it. The top edge is bolted to the metal panel behind the trim. The other sides are just an interference fit between the wheelwell & the outside side panel. Barrie E


B Egerton

What size are those speakers? Do you get a decent sound from them?
Ross Kelly

Ross, they're 6" & they sound fine. I also have 4" speakers under the dash. The quality of the sound would depend on the make of speaker. I can't remember what mine are.They're the ones that came with radio/cassette player back in the 80s, which has been replaced at least twice since then. Barrie E
Barrie Egerton

As an alternative, in my MGB roadster, i mounted a set of Alpine speakers in the original location driven off Alpine head unit, mounted a power amp under the drivers seat driving a pair of (i think) 6.5" Alpines that i mounted in the side area just behind the seats where the hood frame mechanism bolts on. If you remove the frame and the side panel there is a cut out behind that with a bit of careful placement and a deft touch with a Dremel you can easily fit them there. CD changer under passenger seat and hey presto. Wires routed under carpet so none visible. Places the sound just right in the B, and power amp certainly gives plenty of oomph at better than motorway speeds. cheers
jwhitehead

AWhat a great bene that "image" function has become! These pics worth thousands of words! VEM
vem myers

Erick
Are those 6.5's under the dash a shallow mount version? I am planning on putting a set there but did not think you could fit speakers that big?
Thanks
Mike
MK Mike

Mike, I don't think they are shallow mount speakers. I put the speakers into the panels where there was most room for the magnet to fit without clearance issues. You don't want the speaker housing vibrating against a part of the car obviously or you will get annoying buzzing sounds. The left speaker is fit a fair bit left of the steering column. The right speaker is somewhat right of centre of the panel its mounted into. I fit them like this to get the clearance I needed.
Erick Vesterback

Barrie,

Kind of off topic here, but what did you do to modify the back of your GT to get the level flat floor? And, is it easily converted back to the way it was?

Charley
C R Huff

Charley, I removed the rear seat & using the original hinges & brackets, replaced the back with 2 pieces of MDF board cut to size. At the front edge of boards are vertical pieces to make the top boards lie level.I've covered the front vertical pieces with black vynal & carpet on the top boards.I made it in 2 pieces rather than 1 long piece to help make it more managable.It provides a bit of hidden storage.There are no locks or catches fitted,the weight of the MDF keeps it shut at all times. The original seat can always be refitted.Barrie E
Barrie Egerton

Thanks Barrie,

I think I might do that to mine since I haven't found anyone who wants to sit back there. The storage would be nice too since I have the model with no glove box.

Charley
C R Huff

This thread was discussed between 03/07/2008 and 09/07/2008

MG MGB Technical index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG MGB Technical BBS is active now.