What do these things in the doors do?

[nothills]

Whilst sorting my octy estate out, i needed to fit a new CD player as the previous owner had removed his.

Wired up the CD Player but noticed sound was only faintly coming out on the drivers side main speaker and a liitle bit out of the tweeters.

I then Looked in the boot and noticed the 2 rear speakers had had the wires cut so no sound, I understand that so I respliced them connected back up OK, now working fine.

Now to the front.

Removed the speaker covers and noticed wired spliced every where, I removed the passenger side down panel and behind it was this clear box with 6 terminals on it, labeled speaker in/out etc and amplifer.

My question is: Do I need this box and is there likely to be one in the other side, obviously the amp has been removed because theres also a large gauge wire thats be cut in the boot.

Is it best to just reterminate the speakers to the standard skoda loom in the doors?

I'm sure that you younger members know whats what and can advise me. Please be advised I'm an old kit only just got used to using a CD instead of a tape player

PS. Also the stereo is not holding the radio stations etc, every time I turn it off it seems to loose its memory, is this an easy fix?

Edited 17 January, 2012 by nothills

[ExHondaMan]

The stock speaker wiring is gash and best avoided if you're putting in decent speakers, mine were 100% better with proper speaker cable added. I ended up with amps and such but if you're running speakers direct from the head unit you should avoid the standard cables.

From the back of your head unit just pair up the wires in your ISO lead then just solder on enough cable to reach each corner of the car. Best thing is you're only messing with a cheap ISO connector, all the stock wiring is still there should you mess it up somehow.

From my Kenwood head unit the colours in the ISO lead were:

Front Left: White

Front Right: Grey

Rear Left: Green

Rear Right: Purple

Getting the wires into the doors gave me some stress, but it ended up really easy. Here's a bit I copied out of the rambling thread I created at the time:

Well I've spent the afternoon trying to get my tweeters installed in the doors and I finally managed. You may remember I was concerned about tracing the wires through the hinges up the door. I REALLY didn't want to peel the waterproof seal and the insulating foam behind the door card either, and I managed it without even taking the door cards off! :p

After a fair amount of thinking I decided I'd first try to pass a wire from the door hinge up to the tweeter space. Anyway I opened the passenger door and took the tweeter cover off, took out the foam plug where the door mirror cables go and got to work. I pulled the rubber hinge-boot off it's clip, fed a piece of garden wire up inside the door and Ta Daaa! It popped right out of the tweeter hole first time

Next I wound the end of the garden wire around my tweeter cable and yanked it back down through the door. The tweeter cable followed, threading itself through the door as it went. I did a similar thing on the other side of the hinge to get the wires through the car body behind the glovebox, which I needed to remove to make it easier.

Here you can see the path the cable took, straight from the hinge to the tweeter without going behind the door seal. Probably the way everyone does it, but I'm making this stuff up as I go:

On the driver's side the door threading was just as easy but getting the wires through into the car was much harder. I got my head down by the pedals (having removed the horizontal trim that sits above the pedals), and I could just about see a gap in the chassis hidden behind the bonnet release. It took some fiddling but I got it through, this is the exit hole:

Getting the wiring to the door woofers was exactly the same, just point your garden wire from the hinge towards the general direction of the woofer and it'll arrive in the speaker area. If your speakers are larger than the previous there may be a steel tab in the door construction that needs bending back (hammer + screwdriver), but if it had a big system before this has probably already been done :p

On the issue of losing stations etc, I had to switch the red and yellow cables in my ISO lead. Helpfully the Kenwood one had bullet connectors installed to allow this. :p

I'm 40 this year, does that make me a "younger member"? :p

Edited 17 January, 2012 by ExHondaMan

[nothills]

The stock speaker wiring is gash and best avoided if you're putting in decent speakers, mine were 100% better with proper speaker cable added. I ended up with amps and such but if you're running speakers direct from the head unit you should avoid the standard cables.

From the back of your head unit just pair up the wires in your ISO lead then just solder on enough cable to reach each corner of the car. Best thing is you're only messing with a cheap ISO connector, all the stock wiring is still there should you mess it up somehow.

From my Kenwood head unit the colours in the ISO lead were:

Front Left: White

Front Right: Grey

Rear Left: Green

Rear Right: Purple

Getting the wires into the doors gave me some stress, but it ended up really easy. Here's a bit I copied out of the rambling thread I created at the time:

Well I've spent the afternoon trying to get my tweeters installed in the doors and I finally managed. You may remember I was concerned about tracing the wires through the hinges up the door. I REALLY didn't want to peel the waterproof seal and the insulating foam behind the door card either, and I managed it without even taking the door cards off! :p

After a fair amount of thinking I decided I'd first try to pass a wire from the door hinge up to the tweeter space. Anyway I opened the passenger door and took the tweeter cover off, took out the foam plug where the door mirror cables go and got to work. I pulled the rubber hinge-boot off it's clip, fed a piece of garden wire up inside the door and Ta Daaa! It popped right out of the tweeter hole first time

Next I wound the end of the garden wire around my tweeter cable and yanked it back down through the door. The tweeter cable followed, threading itself through the door as it went. I did a similar thing on the other side of the hinge to get the wires through the car body behind the glovebox, which I needed to remove to make it easier.

Here you can see the path the cable took, straight from the hinge to the tweeter without going behind the door seal. Probably the way everyone does it, but I'm making this stuff up as I go:

On the driver's side the door threading was just as easy but getting the wires through into the car was much harder. I got my head down by the pedals (having removed the horizontal trim that sits above the pedals), and I could just about see a gap in the chassis hidden behind the bonnet release. It took some fiddling but I got it through, this is the exit hole:

Getting the wiring to the door woofers was exactly the same, just point your garden wire from the hinge towards the general direction of the woofer and it'll arrive in the speaker area. If your speakers are larger than the previous there may be a steel tab in the door construction that needs bending back (hammer + screwdriver), but if it had a big system before this has probably already been done :p

On the issue of losing stations etc, I had to switch the red and yellow cables in my ISO lead. Helpfully the Kenwood one had bullet connectors installed to allow this. :p

I'm 40 this year, does that make me a "younger member"? :p

Thanks for that, why is the Skoda original cable 'pants' ?

By the way definately a younger member, i'm 52 this year

[ExHondaMan]

Okay, I"ll take the "younger member" tag

The stock wiring just left my nice new speakers sounding weak. This may be because it was specced to be passable for the original speakers, which are below average to say the least. Running the original cabling there was little bass sound and the music quickly distorted at medium volumes. Having changed nothing but the wire I was able to achieve around twice the volume crisply and cleanly. You didn't need to run it loud to hear a big improvement, at all volumes and types of music it was simply far better. Like someone had opened the taps and let the whole tune through

If someone's been chopping at the original cables (which clearly they have), you'll be better off just running new and being done with it

[nitrovrs]

The radio memory problem probably needs the red and yellow supply wires connecting the opposite way round. Red is ignition fed live to power the stereo, yellow is a permanent live to 'remember' settings/channels etc. On some stereo's the manufacturers reverse these two wires so just a case of connecting red to yellow and vice versa.

[nothills]

Swapped the red and yellow wires......perfect works a treat, thanks for that.

Now its just the terminal box of electronic thingy's in the front doors do i need them?

[nitrovrs]

Probably have those 'chocolate block' connectors there to connect standard cables in doors (with a Skoda connector on) to aftermarket speakers (with spade end connections). Any pics??

[nitrovrs]

BTW, i'm assuming that the large gauge wire in the boot (amp power??) has been disconnected at the battery?? otherwise wait for the bang/fire etc :(

[nothills]

Yes the wire for the amp has been diconnected form the battery, haven't a picture of the boxes, definatley not just a connector block.

They measure approx 40mm x 100mm, they are clear plastic with electronic components in them. At one end there are 6 terminals, i think they had on them tweeter +/-, sub +/- and amplifier +/-, they were stuck to the Door card with double-sided tape, the wires come from the the main car loom ie from the sub speeaker, does that help?

[chicken_eyebrow]

They sound like crossovers to me

[nothills]

They sound like crossovers to me

Sorry if I sound thick :p but what do they do and can I remove them?

[Dom_500]

They sound like crossovers to me

+1

[mannyo]

Get some pictures of the speakers and the boxes in the door, it sounds like your car may have had component speakers installed in place of the factory originals and if this is the case then the boxes must remain.

[chicken_eyebrow]

I may be wrong (I've never bothered changing the sound system in any of my cars apart from putting a sub in my first Fiesta) but I think they go between the amp and a set of aftermarket components and tweeters so the high frequency stuff goes to the tweeters and the low frequency stuff to the components.

[Tech1e]

Component speakers normally come with crossovers. These separate the frequencies for the tweeter and driver.

[nothills]

Component speakers normally come with crossovers. These separate the frequencies for the tweeter and driver.

Thats looks similar to mine, so would the crossovers have to connect to an amplifier to work properly or do they work independantly?

[mannyo]

sounds like the front speakers have been changed, and if they have they could also be being driven by an external amplifier. when you replaced the headunit did you see any additional cabling, possibly labeled as a remote switch lead or similar, it could be that you need to connect this wire to the new headunit on the appropriate connection in order to power up the amplifier and produce sound.

Pictures would still be good, as it will help identify the speakers and if any of the wiring looks to have been altered significantly when adding the additional amp.

[nothills]

sounds like the front speakers have been changed, and if they have they could also be being driven by an external amplifier. when you replaced the headunit did you see any additional cabling, possibly labeled as a remote switch lead or similar, it could be that you need to connect this wire to the new headunit on the appropriate connection in order to power up the amplifier and produce sound.

Pictures would still be good, as it will help identify the speakers and if any of the wiring looks to have been altered significantly when adding the additional amp.

Didn't see any additional cabling when I fitted the head unit except for the blue/yellow/green plug (3 plugs together one)which is not connected to head unit.

It looks as though there used to be a seperate amp in the sparewheel well which has been removed as there is a large gauge wire there that has been cut, and there was additional wiring to the rear speakers which had also been cut.

I will try and take some pics tomorrow pm.

[chicken_eyebrow]

The previous owner probably ran the front components off the amp, took the amp with them but couldn't be bothered to take the components and crossovers out too.

[nothills]

The previous owner probably ran the front components off the amp, took the amp with them but couldn't be bothered to take the components and crossovers out too.

Thats I what i thought,

So back to my original point can I remove the crossovers, the front speakers including the tweeters work with the crossovers on but I keep loosing sound from them or the sound is weak

[Tech1e]

The speakers I have are just run off the head unit.

You could connect the cross over to the original speaker wire and then connect the speakers to the cross over.

[nothills]

The speakers I have are just run off the head unit.

You could connect the cross over to the original speaker wire and then connect the speakers to the cross over.

OK, so to just test my understanding I need to connect the original speaker feed from the headunit to the amp connection on the crossover and then the tweeter and woofer to their respective terminals on the crossover, is that right? :yes:

[ExHondaMan]

That all sounds exactly right

If it's still no good with correctly wired crossovers then there's something amiss in the feed from the head unit, likely the wiring has been messed about with. Bypass all the stock wiring by splicing into the ISO cable (as per my rambling thread above), and you'll rule out all of those.

Upload some pics of what you find and let us know how it goes and

Edited 18 January, 2012 by ExHondaMan