Hi there,
The sub in my '97 Eddie Bauer with the JBL system went bad about a week ago, and being the audio perfectionist (& cheapskate) that I am, I wanted to find an inexpensive replacement for it that would sound either as good or better than the stock system did when it was working, without having to spend a lot of cash or do a lot of modification work to get it installed.
Your 1995 Ex will have the same size subwoofer that my 1997 did -- a 6.5 inch. A quick trip to Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. will be fruitless--neither store carries a 6.5 inch sub (of course). :fire: Don't feel too bad, though--I live near Charlottesville, VA (the home of Crutchfield, which you may know is a well-respected audio store) and even they didn't have a 6.5 inch sub.
Being that I didn't see any other choices, I decided I would try to make the next smallest size subwoofer (an 8 inch) fit. So, I bought a Rockford-Fosgate 4 ohm 8 inch single-voice coil sub from Crutchfield for $50 ("Punch" Stage 1). Luckily for me, getting it to go in place of the 6.5 inch sub was pretty easy, although it required modifying (cutting) the stock enclosure that the 6.5 sub was in. Here's what I did, to make it work:
(1) To get to the subwoofer, you'll first need to remove the entire rear quarter panel. Start by folding down your rear seats. Then, open up the tailgate and carefully pry up the scuffguard across the back edge of the carpeting. It is held on by 5 or 6 black plastic rivets, which are connected to the scuffguard. I was able to pull mine up using my hands.
(2) Once the scuffguard is off, you'll see two more black plastic rivets anchoring the back edge of the carpeting. Pry these up by inserting a flathead screwdriver underneath one edge of the rivet parallel to it and rotating the screwdriver so that the flathead is perpendicular to the edge of the rivet. This should produce enough space for you to then take a strip of terry cloth and loop it underneath most of the head of the rivet, thus giving you a "handle" of sorts that you can use to pull up the rivet without cutting your fingertips. Pull the rivet up using a moderate side-to-side pull while grasping onto the terry cloth "handle". Be sure to put the removed rivets in a place where you will not lose track of them-- you'll have a bunch more to put with them by completing step (4) (removing the rear quarter panel).
(3) After the 2 black rivets have been pulled up, fold back the carpeting all the way up past the front of the wheelwells.
(4) You can now begin removing the rear quarter panel. It is held on by two philips head screws at the bottom (which should be exposed now that the carpet has been folded back), 6 long plastic rivets along the top and side of the right rear window, 3 short plastic rivets underneath the right rear window, a Torx bolt which attaches the top of the right rear passenger's shoulderbelt to the frame, and a hex machine bolt that bolts the utility hook above the right rear passenger window to the frame. You'll need a Torx bit to remove the shoulderbelt bolt, and a pair of needlenose pliers to remove the hex machine bolt. Remove all of the plastic rivets using the technique specified in step (2).
(5) Once you have removed all of the plastic rivets, the two philips head screws, the shoulderbelt bolt and the utility hook bolt, you can remove the right rear quarter panel by simultaneously lifting it up and pushing it out. Open up the rear passenger door to help make this easier.
(6) With the quarter panel removed, you can now see and access the subwoofer, its enclosure, its amplifier, and another component. BEFORE you go about removing the subwoofer from its enclosure, though, disconnect the positive lead wire from the battery, so as to greatly reduce the likelihood of a short circuit occurring and frying the sub amp while removing the subwoofer.
(7) Now is a good time to prepare the new sub for when you'll need it later. With the Rockford-Fosgate model I purchased, I found it necessary to remove the silver plastic "basket cover" that is held onto the speaker by magnetic attraction. This will end up exposing the magnet. The silver trim that would normally go around the outer edge of the speaker is also not needed, so take those 2 things and put them aside.
(8) To remove the 6.5 inch subwoofer, simply unscrew the bolts that attach it to the subwoofer enclosure. Then, grab the plastic grille protecting the cone to pull it out. You will soon see where the positive and negative speaker wires from the amp connect to the sub, via little metal harness clips. You can either press the clips in the right places to detach each wire from the sub, or just cut them off. I did the latter, as the Rockford Fosgate sub speaker connecors were designed to be used with bare wire. Keep in mind that the black/light green wire is the positive lead, while the black/white wire is the negative lead.
(9) The volume of the subwoofer enclosure is 9 litres, and it is not a ported enclosure. The recommended non-ported enclosure size for the Rockford-Fosgate 8 inch is 7.8 litres, so the stock enclosure is big enough for the 8 inch sub to work properly. You will quickly notice, however, that the new sub will not fit in the opening for the 6.5 inch sub without doing some cutting. This is pretty easy, though, because the subwoofer enclosure is plastic. I used an old steak knife with teeth similar to a hacksaw blade for the job. You will need to cut out the inner lip of the 6.5 inch subwoofer opening (where the bolts holding the old sub in were screwed in), as well as the little depressed square-shaped area in the lower left corner of the opening just below the channel where the speaker wire rests, in order to accommodate the 8 inch sub. I cut these out in small sections--it took about 20 minutes.
(10) Once you have made the cuts specified in step (9), remove about an inch of the outer sheath of each speaker wire at the ends that used to connect to the 6.5 inch sub, so that they can be inserted into the new subwoofer's speaker wire connectors. Connect the new subwoofer (black/light green to positive, back/white to negative).
(11) The subwoofer enclosure opening will now be larged enough to accommodate the new 8 inch sub, which should fit snugly in the opening and almost flush with the enclosure.
(12) Drill holes into the subwoofer enclosure for each of the mounting bolts that came with the new subwoofer. If you use the same one I did, these will be Allen bolts. Then screw in the mounting bolts, starting on one side of the subwoofer and bolting in the opposite side next. Leave all of the bolts a little loose until you have gotten them all substantially in, then go from side to side tightening each bolt. When you are done, the new sub should be mounted flush or nearly flush with the enclosure.
(13) Replace the rear quarter panel by reversing steps (5) and (4), then fold the carpet back and re-install the rivets anchoring the carpet under the scuffguard. Then, re-install the scuffguard and re-connect the battery.
You should now have a sub that (in my opinion) works much better than the stock one did. I did the entire job, start to finish, in 2 hours.
Hope this helps.
