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General => Car audio => Topic started by: Dizzie on 11 June 2004, 18:10
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First of all I don't claim to be an eggspert on this subject or anything else you've heard I've done to my car. I fancied some door pods to take a 17cm midrange speaker in my mk2 and I wasn't about to pay ?170 for audioscape ones.
As someone once said. "Dizzie ain't afraid to try something new". Now I'd never done fibreglass before, so had no idea how this was going to turn out. After talking with a few people, mainly my dad who worked in a bodyshop for most of his life and seeing a couple of articles on it I had the basic idea covered.
The kit I bought contained the FG sheets, resin, hardener, a brush, some gloves and a little pot to mix in. That lot cost the pocket money sum of ?5.99. Bargin. I also bought some more resin and FG sheets, just in case I needed more. The FG sheets come in 1 huge peice. It's a lot easier to cut that down into smaller strips that will be easier to work with. I didn't actually try putting 1 huge peice on as I was advised not to. Also mixing lots of smaller pots of resin and hardener works best as when I tried to mix more it had gone hard before I'd used all that was in the pot. Cover everything in sight! The door card was under several peices of paper that shaped the same as it so I could get a flush fit when moulding. This gets VERY messy from here on. ;D
(http://www.dizzie.biz/projects/pods/kit.jpg)
First of all I cut a MDF 'donut' the right size to sit my 17cm speaker into. (this was stolen from my last pods i made). I then removed enough of the original pocket to acomodate the magnet behind without having the cut the door card. The idea was to use the FG to create a nice smooth look working up to the MDF ring. I used a Glue gun to secure the donut to the pocket so it was easier to work on. I had to move the speaker up enough so the donut wasn't overlapping the bottom and allowed me to get a nice curve there too, but at the same time wasn't halfway up the door as that would require cutting of the actual card. Since I'd just managed to bag a set of uncut cards and cleaned them up to look like new I wasn't about to cut another hole! See pic.
(http://www.dizzie.biz/projects/pods/speakerintop.jpg)
After getting the position of the donut secured in place I started to apply the sheets of cut down FG absolutly caking them in resin. Not sure if that's the way it's done, but it worked for me. Building up in the corners to a nice curve. You don't have to get the curve absolutly spot on as we'll be covering it in filler ready to sand down to a smooth finish later on. you can always make up sections later. I found when doing the front and bottom if you could get 1 peice to stay on enough and dry it would go rock solid and give a wicked curve unlike the first attempts on the back section. It took about 3 1/2 pots to get it this far. I then put it outside to dry. The fumes are very bad so make sure you're in an open place.
(http://www.dizzie.biz/projects/pods/finishedgf.jpg)
Once it had dried it looked like the above pic. The FG had gone rock solid all around the donut so it was secured as good as it was going to be. Now even the small little bits that are sticking out are solid and require a fair bit to cut down. Next comes the filler. Last time I built some doorpods with only filler I used a whole pot to do each pod. I decided only to mix a little bit to start with. slightly smaller than the size of a fag packet with the right amount of hardener! I only just put the filler on before writting this so I'll take some more pics once that's dried. it's outside at the mo as it was stinking the whole garage out!
(http://www.dizzie.biz/projects/pods/filler1.jpg)
to be continued....
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ill have to dig out some pics of the ones i tried to make a few years ago. they got so big i had trouble shutting the doors! ;D
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the first time I installed the dash I couldn't shut the doors even with the standard pockets on! I moved the dash now so should be ok now. we'll see.
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Your method of working is fine.
have had a bit of experience with Glassfibre. Made Canoe's and surfboards as well as custum door pods for my Mi 16 that hold 6x9's
That worked out fine until i realised that i couldnt open the glove box fully with the door shut! ahem!
So i might get round to re-doing them sometime.
If you want a bit of stiffness to the sides of the new pods, try some 1/4 inch ply cut to fit the inside and bond it in with resin then a layer of glass and resin.
The real difficulty i found was that you can make the new pods as solid as u like but ur still using the existing door card fixing, which arent very substantial. I managed to fix some metal straps and self tap screw them to some door metal.
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finally did some more work on them this morning...
more sanding down got them somewhere near smooth. I then trial fitted them onto the door card to find out I needed to take a bit off the point where the top of the pod met the card. after a couple of trial and error runs I get that sorted. I then gave them a coat of black paint just to hide any white filler once they were covered. I plan to cover the whole pod with vinyl tomorrow once I've bought some glue spray to stick it on with.
Here's what they look like now.
(http://www.dizzie.biz/projects/pods/painted.jpg)
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i dont think that spray glue is strong enough for vinyl. i cant remember the glue your suppost to use tho!! :-[
i think you need some special strong contact adhesive stuff. ask in an audio shop
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Diz,
When you first cut out the mdf ring shown in the second pic wasnt there a big gap between the ring and the door card? Did you cover it with something then fibreglass?
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na, just laid the fibreglass over the hole and bridged the gap. worked ok I think. we'll have to see when I finally test then in the car. I also fillered the inside just to give it a bit more strength.
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looking really good those pods, i did mine a similar way but ditched the door pocket completely and used a backboard of mdf across the whole length of the door, i've used no glue at all with the vynil, just tacked it by stretching and using cobblers tacks, so i can re-trim them again if i don't like the vynil :)
(http://www.2and2.net/Uploads/Images/1jlboot.jpg)
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that's what I did the first time, but found I missed the pockets too much so this time I built them with the pockets will usable.
Just out of interest how do you pop the bonnet now with a pod in the kickwell?
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i use a pair of pliers to pop the bonnet, the cable is routed to pop out just above the pod, it's not too bad though, acts as extra security if nothing else :) i used the bonnet release mounting points to attach the pods.