Kick Panel Project 94 Suzuki Sidekick

OK Dang guys I am very pleased with the way my panels are coming out, I popped the FG off of the stock panel and cut off the excess glass.  The tweeters I figured out how to mount them to the wood rings, they will not be permanent, but pressed in place and can later be popped out if needed.  Ran into a slight problem though, if I have the speaker face at an angle, the clutch pedal won't be able to extend to the floor, so I decided to mount the speaker facing the center without an angle unfortunantly, but it is a good sacrafice, the tweeters will be mouted near the floor facing toward the driver.  Please keep in mind I am doing the drivers side right now and after I finish will do the passenger side.  Do you guys think I should face passenger and driver speakers the same or since I am able to do more with passenger side do it.  This will make the output off wouldn't it??  I also messed up on the flush speaker rings for the 6 1/2" but decided to spray some expanding foam to fill the gaps and air seal it, will pop the speaker out later this evening to see how that went.  Everything seems to be turning out great I am very satisfied with the results so far considering this is my first actual project.

pictures will be posted this evening please check back to put better, or put any input neg or pos!

I hope to see all of your responses to my project, wheather it be before the pics or after it is obviously too late and dark to take them and post them at this hour hehe.

Thanks for checking out my post/project gentlemen!

Sorry about the pics I havent been able to borrow my friends camera, but will have it tomorrow for sure.  So check back tomorrow in the evening to see some pics.

Thx TCalYen I planned on doing that in the begining but was concerned about angling the D.S. as I have a manual and not much room, but the way I ended up doing it I have just enough room, just need to adjust myself on driving as my foot will need to not hang over the left side.

I ended up not facing them toward myself but more toward the middle/passenger side.  I was also going to mount the speaker without an angle, but ended up angling it out a little bit.  I pulled out the dowel rods, so I will be able to get the same angle on the passenger side too as part of the ring is mounted directly to the FG base of the kick panel.  You will be able to see that tomorrow, I have been sanding it down little by little to get ready for the resin/bondo mixture.

Please check back tomorrow evening.  I appologize for lagging it on the pictures too btw.

sorry for the double post, if someone can edit my previous comment moderators, please add this to the third paragraph.

I have an Eclipse CD-8445 so I can adjust time alignment without a problem, but thanx for the concern.

waiting on pics, lol...

Just want to appologize for being so late with these pictures, but when friends do other friends favors, you must be patient.  So as promised the long awaited pics!

These are from Friday so I had not finished cutting the whole for the 6 1/2 speaker and also was not completely sanded to my likings at these pics.

The kick panel now has had bondo put on, 1 layer, and sanded to 100 grit.  Needs more sanding to get it smooth obviously! haha.  It is temporarily installed so that I can get used to driving as it is about 1 1/2 inches away from my clutch.  Although it is pretty safe a hell of a lot more than I thought it was gonna be.  I thought I was going to have to scrap the project and start again.  Thank you guys for being patient.  More pictures to come as I progress so please be patient as I do not have money for my own D.C. right now.  I hope to hear your inputs to know what you think.

I know you guys are gonna say a lot about it being as close to the clutch as it is.  If you guys really think negative then I will complete the project to use as an example to others that might want me to do some FG work for them.  Do you guys think it would have been better to have the speaker just face toward the center of the car with no angle?  What are all of your guys thoughts?

Thanks for lookin

Wayne

The rear center speaker idea looks great on paper but it actually causes more troube than its worth. It throws off the whole sound of the car.  Especially since you are talking about puttin most of your sound in the rear instead of the front where its supposed to be. the ieserve/surround feature on the 8445 will not do that great of a job with the surround because it is not a true decoder. You might want to think about just doing 2 sets of 3-ways up front and just a simple coax setup in the rear since it is only for rear fill. I personally dont run rear door speakers. I have a couple of JL 6" subs in my rear doors just for mid bass and thats it.

How are you liking the 8445? I bought that same deck a while back, an upgrade from the 8443. I like the tuning control in the 8443 better but the add on tuning mic of the 8445 is pretty cool.

I see, well I dont even know if I would want to spend the money on it either way.  I want to see someone elses first if I possibly can.  Thanks for the comment on the subject though.

Personally I use a jig saw. Im pretty good about following the lines.

mustangfoo wrote:

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Hey that looks nice man, yea well another reason I had to do mine like that is because of the space I had to work with. Wasnt a lot of it to work with haha.

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OK guys, the long awaited update pics! lol.  These are after 1 layer of bondo/resin mixture and sanded to 100 grit.  The pits that you see are not as bad as they actually look, the flash made them apear more, but still have yet to do a couple more bondo layers.

That is what I have so far.  I thought I was going to get farther, but have been so damn busy this week unexpectedly it is not even funny! *HAHA*

But besides that I have been trying to plan out on the door panels.  Has anybody done custom door panels before??

I want to know of how I could give mine strength on the back, and make them have curves like the new plastic panels, like in a newer mustang.

Here are some pictures so you can see how they look.

Passenger Side

To show how thick the panel is, it is thin.

How it looks in the back.

And this is the driver side.

Now I want to do something like this using the dirver side for an example.  Only piece really that I might want to keep on the panel is the Door opening handle.  Other than that I want to make it different, and pop out the window switches to put on the new panel to make it look like they were supposed to be there.

Thats what I have so far guys, what do you guys think about it all?  Hopefully you guys can give me some ideas on how to do these door panels.

Here is a suggestion for doing something totally differant..I'm bored at work so forgive me.

I wish I had some pics to show but I can't draw to save my life. Anyway, you could maybe use chicken wire to form your curves of what you might want to do to your panels. I HIGHLY suggest getting a used driver and passanger door panel so you can mess it up without worry. You have alot of surface are to work with by the looks especially in the upper quadrants. How much room between the door and seat? Mine i have very ittle room unfortunatly. You could do some really radicul stuff/curves using some basic chicken wire.

Or you could hot glue some dowls and woof peices in certain places then wrap it with fleece and see what you get from it.

I know this didn't help much with an exact idea but least it gives you and idea on what to use. I am sure there are other stuff better suited for getting some curves. You might want to retain the door panels and cover them with glass to make one unit or you could just make a completely new panel out of glass. The choice is yours :)

HAHA page 4 belongs to me. . . lolz

Hmm sounds interesting.  For some reason I cant remember exactly how much room between the door and seat are right now HAHA.  What I was thinking of SO far was to make a replica of the panel with the same type of wood, go figure I have a hardware store on the next block over on the corner closest to me , which allows me to walk whenever I need something.  Anywho, go down and pick a piece up there and cut it out to the same measurements of the original.  What I was looking at doing, although not sure if it would work in my case was somehow making a piece of wood(balsa???) that would go from where the original handle is and make it curve up toward the original door opener handle and at that far end make it curve into the door like a quarter circle or oval.  I definently need to make the panel bubble out somehow without (making it look like a mistake was made) where the plug is, other wise the window crank will be hitting the panel.  Where the holder that has papers in it, I want to remove that and put some components in its place.

OK not only what do you think about that idea, but also I was wondering if the following was possible?  Is there a way to use the original handle shape without incorporating the piece into the FG?  Or if I use that shape must I Fiberglass directly over that and use some adhesion promoter?  Correct me if I am wrong but that piece is wrapped in a plastic type vinyl.

Thanks guys.