Can’t remove sail panel on drivers side

I’m going to borrow a friends multimeter. @shifty` can you send me the instructions for measuring the resistance?
My order from Crutchfield came in today.

Thanks

 

Totally. I don't know which meter you have, so I can't tell you which (if req'd) ports to plug your leads into. But basically, black goes to common/ground port, and if there are multiple other ports to plug the red lead into, choose the one that looks like ohms.

Actually, good on them, it appears SonicElectronix has a great video explaining with the two common styles of DMM (digital multimeter):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLuXqDFc1CM​

 

And not that it necessarily matters, but the (+) terminal is typically on the right when the speaker is facing cone-down. (-) on the left when cone is face-down.

You can use this for multiple wiring purposes, I had to do it recently to confirm I wired 2 dual-voice coil subs up (4 terminals total) out to get a 4ohm load to my 5-channel amp. (Over here)

 

The woofers are 2 ohms and the mid speaker is 4 ohms. I’m assuming the tweeter is also for 4 ohms.

I’m now debating whether I want to install the powerbass speakers. I show a picture of them two side-by-side with the stock JBL woofer. The powerbass speaker seems very light and cheaply made compared to the heavy magnet in the JBL speaker. I’m thinking I need to go a different route.

 

Your call. If the tweeter is indeed 4ohm, I’m confident the mid is on its own channel and they’re running the tweeter and smaller speaker in parallel. In which case, if I wanted a plug and play solution, I’d probably do the following:

• Measure the center-to-center on the mounting holes on the mid you’re showing in the pic; someone else said the 7” PowerBass fit fine in their door, if that’s true and you can fit a 7” driver down there, contrary to my typical advice…
• I’d find a beefy 7” driver comparable to or stouter than the OEM JBL and swap it in using the metro adapter.
• I’d find a tweeter that is easily mountable in the sail panel, either one with an integrated capacitor, or without; whether it has one or not would negate part of the rest of this …
• I’d find an appropriate value capacitor for the tweeter, and I’d take a very specific action to wire in the new tweet, a bit different from how Bubba did his, but very similar in function. I can draw up how I’d do it if you can get me a picture of your door with the panel off but the tweeter wired in place. I’ll also need to reference me cheat sheet to figure out what farad capacitor to use.

If we had a 2ohm woofer and other two front door speakers are in fact 2ohm there’s really no way to do this without a custom connector OR cutting a single pair of wires, the pair that arrive at connector “A” in my pics from the middle of the door. You can safely leave the wires between connector “A” and the lower speaker housing intact once that other pair is cut.

Depending what is happening inside connector “A”, you may be able to hijack that connector for a plug and play solution. I’d need to see inside and above/below that connector with it unplugged to offer up more details on that one.

 

Here are some pictures of the tweeter and connector

 

And without the tweeter connector plugged in.

 

This is why I really hate the EWD we have access to. Absolutely NONE of that is represented in the EWD so far as I can tell.

I need to throw some glasses on to make heads or tails of that. Definitely more going on than I expected. I was cool with it and thought I had it figured out on my smartphone, then I saw how skinny the wires going up to the tweeter were. Then I looked at that bundle feeding the mirror and saw another green and black wire pair in that and started to question myself. Gimme 30, I’ll be able to open this on a computer.

I think my previous assumption, that one pair feeds up to the tweeter, and they’re bridging in parallel coming off and feeding that down to the purple/pink pair to feed the smaller lower door speaker is correct. But I need to reference the EWD to be safe.

 

Since I had the simply speakers foam repair kit, I’ve started on that instead. If this doesn’t work out to my liking, I will probably be going new speakers and a dedicated amp.
I don’t like the idea of losing that mid speaker and only having a tweeter and a woofer in the front.

 

It wouldn't bother me much at all. If you have a solid midrange in that spot, you're not losing much at all (if any). The reality is, with how that little 1½" speaker in the lower door is positioned, you're not going to benefit from any high-range sound it's putting out IMHO. The soundstaging is shit.

Can you do me a favor, though, while you're in there, help me put something to bed? Can you unravel the tap in this circled spot and take a pic?

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I suspect you're going to find the following, where one each doubled-up pair of wires loops back to the single-wire side, and the other of that pair goes up to the tweeter. Like this.

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This is a better representation of what I think you'll find in there, though I had to use dark grey for black, and it's ultimately should be showing in the EWD. But it damn sure isn't showing this.

This would create a 2 ohm load due to the black/green (uh, grey/green) loop, which is bridging the tweeter and tiny door speaker below.

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This may or may not help you but it might help me in case I need to improve on mine.

• Since new HU only had LF + and - like most radios and bypassed amp, I no longer need 2 of the 4 conductors, that came from OEM AMP at the door. That's why you see 2 conductors cut at door
• Those 2 conductors we're now using would be for the new speaker and tweeter, correct ?
• If true, the 2 conductors we're using are now for speaker and tweeter ?
• Yes, I used the original connectors and de-pinned what I did not need.
• Clear as mud /

 

I did this repair years back; I think it was worth it. Still sounds good, holding up fine. I do have a small sub in the back that helps the overall sound though

Really depends on what you're looking for

 

Definitely, most modern head units only have left/right front + left/right rear, four total channels, so you'd really want to isolate and my method I listed above, and I'm about to write again is only intended for people keeping the OEM JBL amp. Can't stress that enough for folks who are reading this later, though I know you know this already.

Your way is most logical for anyone deleting the OEM JBL amp, although I have an idea of how maybe it could be handled more cleanly with a simple change or two, it's perfect. But yes, you have (4) OEM wires to each front door with OEM JBL.

There are three possible upgrade paths I can imagine:

• Keep the OEM JBL amp - Keep the OEM radio - update the speakers with 2ohm drivers: You'd follow the steps 1 & 2 below.
• Delete the OEM JBL amp - Add aftermarket radio - update the speakers with 4ohm drivers without using a crossover module: I'd follow essentially what you've described and shown, using the Metra JBL amp bypass harness.
• Delete the OEM JBL amp - Add aftermarket radio - update the speakers with 4ohm driver components that come with a crossover module: I'd leave the purple/pink and blue/green wires intact on both doors since the Metra JBL amp bypass won't support them. Then on the passenger door, I'd cut the white/blue-str and black/yellow-str wire and route that to the crossover module, and on the driver door I'd cut the green and blue/white-str wire and route that to the crossover module. From there, the crossover feeds your mid and tweeter directly, with the signals they need, and there's no weirdness of worrying about series/parallel and ohms/load.

For anyone wanting to keep the OEM JBL amp, I believe the cleanest, easily-reversible way to handle it is this:

1. Cut the green/black loop where shown below to break the loopback to the lower 1½" high-range, which ultimately turns the FR-/FR+ into a direct run up to the tweeter; Of course, if the OEM JBL amp isn't doing any frequency blocking (I thought it did?!), and there wasn't a bass-blocking capacitor barrel mounted to the tweeter housing inline, you'd need to install a bass blocking capacitor on the (+) line (green wire) up to the tweeter **IF** the replacement tweeter doesn't already have a cap glued to its housing, as many do. Important to note, where a capacitor cuts off varies based on impedance, so which capacitor one would choose would vary based on the impedance of the driver chosen, but since OEM JBL amp expects 2ohm load, you could use a calculator to figure out depending on where you'd cap (2,000Hz - 5,000Hz would be typical), 47uf is probably a safe bet, but I know a guy who would've probably dropped a 22uf in there, for reasons.
2. When replacing the mid-woofer, use Metra 72-9301 to adapt your replacement mid/woofer at the point circled in red below, 2nd image, being careful to secure any loose wire with strong adhesive, to the plastic OEM baffle (or any replacement baffle) to avoid rattles.

Again, that two-step would *ONLY* be for folks like @Khunter0211 who want to keep the OEM JBL amp, but upgrade to better drivers.

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And it appears for the rear OEM JBL housings and speakers, you'll use that same Metra 72-9301 harness and plug in here, I'm not sure why Crutchfield recommends the other one, that actually looks like it fits the front door tweeter connector:

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Last but not least, to isolate your tweeter, it appearsa you're going to use Metra 72-8104 and it's going to connect here, then you'll route Metra's two wires up to the tweeter. You'll need to heed the info in your Metra JBL amp bypass harness to get the tweeters to work.

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