#car install

[grabherhandandwisper-run]

Replace Your Worn out or Missing Seat Packings

From the factory, MG used spacers and packing to hold the seats off the carpets. The original design used an alloy spacer, 3/8" thick, 3/4" in diameter with a 5/16" hole in the center for the seat-mounting bolt to pass through. Around these spacers was a 1/4" thick wooden packing strip to hold the carpet down and help support the seat rails. This system had problems. The wood tended to get wet and hold water on the carpet for long times. This promoted rot of the carpet, the packing strips, the seat rails and the floors. Through the years, many previous owners have removed these packing strips, either because they were destroyed by rot, lost, or just believed them to be unnecessary. This is how to replace these packing strips with something that will not only work better but also will not soak up and hold water to ruin your carpet.

First, you will need to acquire some  aluminum flat bar stock, 1/4" thick and 1" wide. I purchased 6061 from McMaster Carr, an industrial supply house. McCarr, online at http://www.mcmaster.com. has just about everything in the whole world available at reasonable prices and service is FAST. The aluminum sometimes can be found at larger hardware stores or building supply dealers. When you find your materials, cut four pieces 20 5/8" long. You can then lay one of your seat rails on top to locate where the holes will need to be drilled. Notice that the holes will not be centered in the strips, rather the hole centers will be about 3/8" from one edge. The 1" wide material will also fit perfect under the seat rails. Before you mark your holes, be sure that you have the right locations. The seat rails have several holes in them for other applications. The holes you use should be 14 5/8" apart, center to center. Once these holes are located, drill them with a 5/16" drill bit. The bolts that pass through them are 1/4"X28 TPI, so the larger hole will give you a bit of slop to help aligning things when you re-install the seats. If you have the original seat packings, I am sure that you have noticed that the originals are a bit different from your new ones. The originals fit around the alloy spacers and set on the carpet. Your new ones will sit on top of the alloy spacers, thus holding them above the carpet. This will help prevent moisture from being trapped under the packings and rotting your carpet and floors. Don't have the spacers? No big problem. The originals were made from round aluminum, 3/4" in diameter, 3/8" thick with a 5/16" hole through the center. I made new ones from aluminum stock, but you can do just as well by buying a handful of 3/8" stainless steel washers, gluing 4 or 5 together as a stack with superglue until you have a spacer of about the right height. I also suggest that you replace the original 1/4"X28TPI X1"long bolts with longer stainless steel bolts as well. Once again, I purchased mine at McCarr but they may be available elsewhere. You new packing strips can be left unfinished or painted black, as I did. Black paint will make them show up a bit less unless you are looking for them. Now all that's left is to reinstall your seats with your new packing strips on top of the spacers. If you remove the stop block at the rear of one rail for each seat you will find them easier to re-install. Start with the rear bolts, and then once you get them snug, go to the front bolts. I also ran a long bolt through the floors from the bottom to act as a guide in locating the holes, but a screwdriver can be used just as easy. So there you have it, how to replace your rotted wood packing strops with something more modern. In all fairness, I cannot claim responsibility for this idea. Les Bengston wrote about it back in 1999 and his article is on his website, http://www.custompistols.com/cars/articles/index.htm Thank you, Les for the solution to a common problem

[morelhifi]

SQ Install - BMW 335D

Our first install is by Bing Xu of Simplicity in Sound (SIS) in San Jose, CA. Anyone who's been on DIYMobileAudio.com or followed him on CarAudiomag.com should be quite familiar with his clean, elegant style and high standard for audio quality. That description of course aptly applies to the Bimmer featured here.

Chief among his concerns for this build was the noise issue: "Late model BMWs are very noisy cars electrically, spitting out a ton of interference and have been known to induct noise directly into the circuit boards of amplifiers and passive crossover modules!" said Bing. Beyond that, in general his goals for this project were:

1. Maintain a totally stock appearance in the interior.

2. Achieve a clean and stealthy appearance in the trunk while maintaining as much space as possible.

3. Obtain a decent level of sound quality given the stock locations.

This was Bing's first install as a Morel dealer. As he explained, it's "a brand that I have always loved." He used the Morel Hybrid Ovation II 4" component set for the front stage with the tweeters mounted in the stock sail location. They dropped right in and even the stock foam fit perfectly.

Adapter rings were fabricated and the HOII 4" drivers mounted to them.

The area on the door card around the midrange was covered with damper and the speaker was bolted in place.

The car has the base Hi-FI system with no center channel, so Bing installed a Morel Integra Ovation 4" coaxial into the stock location.

In the fiberglass side box of approximately .7 cubic feet sits a Morel Ultimo SC10 2ohm subwoofer.  It is also trimmed in a ring of graphite vinyl.

An overview of the trunk.

There are a pair of Mosconi AS200.4 four-channel amplifiers, one sends 200 watts to each midrange and tweeter, while the second unit powers the under seat woofers with 200 watts and sends a whopping 950 watts RMS at 2 ohms to the sub.

Some details on the build of the subwoofer enclosure: the fiberglass side box area was all taped up and a dozen or so layers of cloth were laid down. The mold was then pulled out of the car and trimmed to the desired shape. A ring baffle and a strip of low heat plastic was attached to the structure to give it shape, and fleece pulled. Once that dried, the entire thing was sanded a bit to get rid of the rough edges. Bing cut the back of the box open and reinforced the box from the inside with nine layers of mat. Two quarts of Duraglas/resin milkshake were then poured into the enclosure to seal everything and make the corners solid. The opening was sealed back up with six layers of cloth from the inside and out. Finally, the box was wrapped in trunk liner, and then dyed to a lighter shade to match the stock color. The trim ring was wrapped in vinyl and wire run into the box. Now it was ready for the subwoofer. The metal bracket at the top edge of the box meets up with a stock hole in the trunk so the enclosure can be secured with a single OEM plastic clip. The bottom of the enclosure is held in place by the fake floor.

See more at http://simplicity.elitecaraudio.org. Also read the announcement about SIS's new retail store: http://bit.ly/Vtdmml. You can find the shop here as well: http://www.facebook.com/simplicityinsound.

Our thanks to Bing Xu and Simplicity in Sound!

[fyeahcaraudio]