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240 Volvo Aftermarket Speaker Help

Xovaan

research flat earth
Joined
Jul 31, 2008
Location
SF, CA
I'm looking to put an entirely new sound system in my '84 240 Turbo (Sedan), but I can't find any guides online on how to effectively put larger speakers in the front.

I know it's possible to put 6x9's in the rear deck, so that's what I'm going to be running (or 5.25+"), but I'm not satisfied with 4" speakers in the front and am looking to go at least 5.25" up there as well.

What is the best way to do this? I can't find kick panels anywhere for this model vehicle and I don't know how sturdy simply putting spacers on particle board would be.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
copy pasta quoting myself from 01/02/10, subject at hand was a 245:

I have to say I would not bother with 4" speakers for the front or rear, even with aftermarket speakers the sound will never be really decent. I would go with 6.5" speakers in the front, and rear doors, an example of this is seen in the photos below of my '92 245 (taken when the car had 43k miles on it, currently 54k). I've done this to several 245s that I've owned, and so have many others that I know of. The fronts are pretty simple to install, very little modification required to do this. The rear doors don't have much behind the door panel to support the speaker so I usually take some aluminum sheet metal and cut some plates to hold them and pop rivet those to the door.

The front doors can normally take up to 1 7/8" mounting depth, possibly more, but there you may need to make some measurements with the window in the up and down position to be sure. There are other ways of mounting them, but I've found the easiest way is to support them on studs, I use 4mm screws:
http://www.threefattigers.com/Protocore/Volvo/SpeakerStud.jpg
If you pull off the door panel you will find four small holes surrounding the main speaker opening in the sheet metal. With manual windup windows, these 4 holes line up exactly in the ideal position for 6.5" speakers, however for the armrest used with power windows, you would need to use three studs in an triangular arrangement where you use the two existing rear holes and drill a single new front hole, and here you will likely also need to cut away a small part of the sheet metal on the forward side of the opening to accommodate the speaker basket/magnet, something like 1/4 inch; you may also have to enlarge the opening in the door panel for the same reason. The studs are arranged where the screw head faces the outside of the car, then one nut & inner tooth type lock washer securing the screw to the door, then passing through the door panel, then one nut+lock washer to create a back stop/rest for the speaker, then then one nut+lock washer to secure the speaker to the stud. These are installed after the door panel is in place. Finally they excess part of the screw is cut off using a dremel with a heavy duty cut off wheel. Finally, using some vacuum hose, with the ends cut at an bevel, to fill the obvious gap where the speaker bridges that central recessed area of the door panel.

Then I would toss in an 8" powered bazooka behind the driver's seat, as seen in the photos below. The carpet it's wrapped in serves to hide it, and to keep it from moving around and to protect the carpet below from wear marks. Amazing bass, can crank it way up, but outside the car you can not hear it at all, car is no louder than if all you had was a stock stereo. But open a window or a door and you can hear it inside your home. The controls on the back can be reached while driving, with your left hand. Can also offer a nice back massage when desired.

If I were buying components today for this setup, for the front I would buy either this:
http://www.crutchfield.com/p_130TSG....html?showAll=N&tp=105&tab=features_and_specs
or this:
http://www.crutchfield.com/p_130TSA....html?showAll=N&tp=105&tab=features_and_specs
most likely the second one.

And this for the rear doors:
http://www.crutchfield.com/p_130TSA....html?showAll=N&tp=105&tab=features_and_specs

Then the sub:
http://www.crutchfield.com/p_204TA850C/Bazooka-TA850C.html?tp=114

Don't know what to recommend in a 4" speaker, but then I wouldn't recommend them at all.

Photos:
92-240-1387.jpg

92-240-1386.jpg

92-240-1965.jpg

92-240-1966.jpg

92-240-1969.jpg

92-240-1971.jpg

92-240-1974.jpg

92-240-1973.jpg

Bazooka:
92-245sub0.jpg

92-245sub1b.jpg

92-245sub2b.jpg


Only photo I have of 6.5" in my '84 245:
84V-I001-sd2.jpg
 
I did the same thing that ThreeFatTigers did to fit 5.25 inch speakers in the doors of my 850. It worked like a charm.
 
ThreeFatTigers, did you have any issues with the window handle hitting the speakers in the 245 manual setup? It's hard to see in the pic, but it looks like the handle arc would bump the speaker grill.
 
ThreeFatTigers, did you have any issues with the window handle hitting the speakers in the 245 manual setup? It's hard to see in the pic, but it looks like the handle arc would bump the speaker grill.

No it never made contact, but it came close, the low profile of the grills helped, the grills on the speakers I recommended above look very similar to mine in that department, so I would expect good results.
 
No it never made contact, but it came close, the low profile of the grills helped, the grills on the speakers I recommended above look very similar to mine in that department, so I would expect good results.

Excellent! I see a pair of those in my very near future. Thanks for posting the pics.
 
Well for some real fun you could build a little enclosure on the bottom of your doors for some 6 1/2s like me and my buddy did. Looks pretty sweet and definitely adds some great midbass.

But the 5 1/4 idea is pretty cool but I enjoy my setup in the top where I had a sheet of 1/4 inch MDF mounted behind the speaker hole so I had enough room to put my 4 inch infinity kappas flush so I could put the original grill over making the top look stock.
 
I'm looking to put an entirely new sound system in my '84 240 Turbo (Sedan), but I can't find any guides online on how to effectively put larger speakers in the front.

I know it's possible to put 6x9's in the rear deck, so that's what I'm going to be running (or 5.25+"), but I'm not satisfied with 4" speakers in the front and am looking to go at least 5.25" up there as well.

What is the best way to do this? I can't find kick panels anywhere for this model vehicle and I don't know how sturdy simply putting spacers on particle board would be.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have a 242DL. 1984.

6x9's fit in the rear. You have to modify the metal but not a lot. The shelf already has some odd sizes punched out. It requires some careful positioning but 6x9's can fit quite nicely. One of the issues is cutting out in the desired position means 2 of your mount screws or bolts wont have metal to go into.
This seems to be quite ok with some car stereo installers but if you break really hard or hit something you could find your speakers lodged into the back of your head. I made 2 plywood cut outs to place under the shelf in the trunk to mount into.

Speaker-install_zps2e8b7b46.jpg


Speaker-install-trunk_zps07064710.jpg
 
Some Questions for Three Fat Tigers

copy pasta quoting myself from 01/02/10, subject at hand was a 245:

I realize I am late to this thread but want to thank you for your post of the 6.5" speakers in a 240 front door. I do have a few questions that perhaps you (or someone else who tried this) can answer:

1. I do NOT want to mount the speaker only to the door card as I now see is the case with the 4" units on my 1983 242. I see that in the door metal "speaker bay" there are 4, pre-drilled holes on 4" centers. Did you mount to those holes? I would want to mount into those for a more solid attachment and to reduce the strain that the door-card-hung speaker seems to place on the forward door card hanging pillar which is now cracking. It seems that a mounting screw diameter of 142mm should get me right there and I have seen at least 1 6.5" speaker that gets me there.

2. Did you have to widen the hole in the door card to accept the 6.5" speaker's cone? If so, what is the best way to approach this cutting?

3. Your photos show an install to a door with power windows. My car has manual crank. I think that the arm rest will still clear like yours did. But I am concerned about the manual window crank arm. I MAY be able to shim the arm out a bit with some washers in the fixing bolt hole. But not sure if that would be adequate and worry that the change may weaken the crank arm. Any info/comments?

4. Obviously, with the 6.5" sitting so much further inbound from where my 4" sit now in the recessed area of the door card, I may be able to accommodate the additional depth that the larger speaker seems bound to impose. Any idea of the practical limit - especially given that the magnet's diameter is bound to be larger than my 4".

5. What did you use to fill the gap between the speaker and the recessed portion of the door card? I have read of someone using some black rubber hose of some sort. Any particulars will help.

Thanks!
 
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