fitting component speakers with a crossover - help?

[multiskoda]

So I've finally got around to upgrading the front door speakers (I'll be disconnecting the rears for now), and am wondering how best to wire them up.

 

 

In all my previous cars, the tweeter was part of the door card, and so adding a component set was easy - you take the feed from the factory stereo, plug the crossover unit onto the end of it, and then run your tweeter and woofer wires from there to the appropriate locations in the doors. Fine.

 

It seems with the Fabia I can't do that so easily, as the tweeter is in the A pillar, and from what I can make out, doesn't get its feed from the same place as the door (but I've not started pulling apart wiring looms to find out). 

 

Is the best thing to do to put the crossover in the door, wire up the woofer, then run a new wire through the grommet in the door, past the dash, and up to the A-pillar to my new tweeter (basically bypassing the factory tweeter wire)?

 

Or does anyone have a wiring diagram for the factory speaker wires so I can try and work out where I might best position the crossover?

 

Thanks!

 

 

 

[vxh26]

Cautionary note - I believe that it is alleged that replacing speakers in front doors can mess with the air bags. I don't know how true this is?

[multiskoda]

Cautionary note - I believe that it is alleged that replacing speakers in front doors can mess with the air bags. I don't know how true this is?

 

Oh.

 

I found this: http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/262628-elegance-airbags-pressure-sensors-where-are-they-all/

 

which suggests I'm OK?

[vxh26]

Good find

 

Send a Private Message (PM) to FabFabFabia and ask him whether it all went smoothly?

[TeflonTom]

The oem tweeters are wired in parallel to the door speakers, but the tweeter has a simple high pass filter attached to it which to all intents and purposes is just a capacitor in series with the speaker, so essentially both speakers ( door and tweeter) recieve the same signal from the radio but the tweeter filters out the frequencies it can't produce. there will be a wiring junction somewhere, most likely the wires go to the tweeter first then is looped of from there to go to the door loom probably at the place just before the door loom.

personally I would never fit a crossover inside a door, there's too much vibration from the doors closing and the terminals work loose eventually plus it gets damp inside the door cavity so the connections will get corroded over time. I would try and get them up behind the dash instead, if the wires are done as I said (in parallel looped off the tweeter) then that is where I would split the wiring to each speaker vi the crossover.

[multiskoda]

Thanks.

 

Have just fitted the tweeters by chopping out the old ones and gluing in the new ones. While I was there I took the sides off the dash, and there's enough room there to mount the crossovers, so that avoids sticking them in the door.

 

I checked the tweeter wiring, and there are just the two wires (no loop), so not sure where the wire splits.

 

I'm tempted to just run all new wiring to the crossovers, and then run a wire from the crossover in the dash through the grommet in the door to the new woofer, rather than messing with the factory wiring (and trying to figure out where the junction is. Just not sure how much of a pain it is to get to the grommet...

[zouche]

When i had an installer do mine, he had to use the factory wiring to get through to the door as the grommet is incredibly hard to get another wire through. The crossover is under the dash and new wire running up to the tweeters. I guess using factory wiring for the woofer isn't ideal, but the alternative was hours and hours of work...

[multiskoda]

Hmm. That isn't encouraging. Gonna take a proper look on Sunday and I'll post back my findings.

[Ant-Vrs]

I've done this and good luck with it.

I put the cross over under the dash the ran new wires upto the tweeter.

[multiskoda]

Thanks ant-vrs and zouche I took your advice in the end. Crossovers are tucked in the centre console, using the factory wiring for the woofers and new wires up to the tweeters.

Found some wooden spacers on eBay for a good price too. If anyone needs any more details let me know.

Edited 30 April, 2014 by louisv6