Folks,
anybody have experience changing the two front speakers in this old chevy body style dashboard? I know they are small in diameter (something like 3-5"), but does one have to remove the whole padded dash, or are you suppose to come in from the bottom?

Just trying to keep the tunes sounding nice. thanks in advance for any help.

 

You have to pull the dash, but it is very easy. Take out the bezel around the gauges, remove the screws along the bottom if I remember there are 5 or 6 and then there are 2 screws on both sides (facing the doors). I think you also might have to disconnect a duct from the far right A/C vent by reaching through the glove box opening. The dash will then pull straight towards you. Watch out for the height and depth of the speakers. You don't want any that have a tweeter sticking out. It has been years, but I have done a bunch of them.

 

Thanks Mr. Shamrock. You've brought up a good comment about speaker height, that I never thought of. So really I should pull the dash FIRST, to see how much room is in there. Somewhat of a bummer as I was hoping to order them ahead of time thru Crutchfield or Amazon.

Thanks! Steve

 

Crutchfield is pretty good about knowing what will fit. As long as it doesn't have a big tweeter sticking out of the middle you will be fine. I think they are 3 1/2" speakers if my memory serves me right. I remember putting bass blockers on mine or they would distort a little. The can't keep up with the rear speakers and you still want to try and get a little bass out of them.

 

Huh?... help me out please. Never heard of bass blockers, but just read-up on them via Google. If I were to change all four speakers to the same brand and similar model (yet different size of course), do you think I would still need bass blockers?

thanks for your help Mr. Shamrock!
Steve

 

I would put them in, they are cheap and just wire in on the positive side of the speaker terminals. The problem with these early truck is they come with a large 4"X8" (I think) in the rear and a 3 1/2" in the front. You can always just fade it to the rear, but to me I want as much of the music in front of me as possible. I used to compete a little and the judges wanted to be able to sit in the drivers seat, close their eyes and feel as if they were at a rock concert - so we tried to stuff as many speakers in front as possible. As a matter of fact in your truck there is a place already cut in your dash in the middle that houses another 4"X8" (again I may be wrong on the size it has been a while) and I utilized that in my 84 Silverado as a center channel. The bass blocker will enable you to get the most volume out of your speakers with the least amount of distortion - which is the name of the game. That is also why you see most vehicles now come with either the same or close to the same size speakers all the way around many with separate tweeters that have bass blockers already on them. Good Luck!

 

What are bass blockers?

 

Just a little capacitor that gets wired in on the positive side speaker terminal and it blocks frequencies below a certain level. Here is a short article with a picture...

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://pix.crutchfield.com/kb/Bass_Blocker.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.crutchfield.com/ISEO-rgbtcspd/tech/kb261.html&usg=__9n60n5hN3w5Wh6_E4dADMUSt6Cc=&h=20 7&w=316&sz=17&hl=en&start=3&itbs=1&tbnid=Om66kcYo9 Say8M:&tbnh=77&tbnw=117&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbass%2Bblocker%26hl%3Den%26client%3Df irefox-a%26sa%3DG%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-USfficial%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1