I would post this in the audio security board, as it relates to audio.. but that forum is freakin' dead anyways. It's not an audio specific question tho... but, I'll get to the point.

I'm running new speaker wire from the front doors to the rear of the car. The speakers are wired.. but the only way I could figure out how to get the new wire from the door to the back (without drilling holes...) was to make it poke out from around the side of the grommet. Then, there's another grommet on the body of the car, and again, I went around the side of the grommet and managed to run the wire to the back of the car.

This is my concern. Water DOES get in that area, and after washing my car I noticed some water was on the wire.. not a lot, but..

The grommets aren't completely out of their holes, over half of the grommets are still in the hole... but should I find a better way to run the wire? If that's the case.. I think I'll need to take off the doors, because it's really hard to get in that area.

Am I running a risk of getting water inside the door, and worse, inside the dash by all the electronics? Or, am I good enough and I should leave it be?

I'm not sure how I should take the doors off either, it doesn't look too hard.. anybody done it before?

 

It's a bit easier to remove the front fenders... gives you the same access to the door jam, with a lot less work.

Good luck

 

Duff man! haha, he's cool!

Ok well, there was a good article on vtec.net about integra audio setups and how to take the door panel off.

G'luck

 

hmm... maybe the front fenders would be easier. I have no idea how to take off the body panels of a car though.. how would I take the fenders off?

And it's not the door /panel/ I need off, it's the actual door. Or maybe, the fender.

"Duffman.. can't breathe."

 

Remove all the screws holding the inner fender in, and take it out first. Then you have the following:10mm:
bolts along the top edge of the fender under the hood.
bolts behind the door jam, below the mirror.
bolts at the bottom corner of the fender, behind the plastic rocker/ground effect.
bolts on the support brace in the front of the tire well.
Then the screw that holds the bumper up to the fender, and be CAREFULL with the plastic clips that attach the bumper to the fender, they'll break easy. If they do... just run to the dealer and buy a couple new ones. Like $6....

 

Hmm.. it seems like the door would be easier. How would I go about taking the door off?

Or maybe I won't try to fix the gaskets at all.. and it's good enough? I need opinions, guys. Is it safe the way it is, or is it worth all the trouble to drill holes or whatever the hell I'll end up doing..

 

OH yeah... that. haha... sorry. Got distracted... no I doubt the door would be easier. Not in my view anyhow...
but if your worried about leakage... just get some clear silicon and dab a little around the grommet man. That'll be $3 for the silicon, and about 10 minutes. Now if you want it to look really good... you'll have to go for the door or fender removal. The choice is yours... but your not going to get a whole lot of water in the car through a little hole like that.

 

Right, and I already have the silicone. But there isn't even enough room to get the silicone in there. I think what I might do is put a shitload of it in my hand, slap it right on the grommet, and then try to work with it...

Hmmm...

 

I had some special wiring done to my doors and they had to be REMOVED, so that the installer could drill new holes w/ grommets for the new wiring.
This is more professional vs. poking holes out of your oem rubber grommets. I suppose it depends on how much wiring needs to be added to the doors.

Having your door removed is no fun b/c they'll need re-alignment afterwards and that's very tedious if your doing it yourself. Or you can just take it to a body shop and have them re-align your doors.

 

This is what I did....
To get the wire out the door... remove wiring harness (for window/mirrior wires) now there isent really room just to run the wire between the door and the harness w/o squishing and bending the hell out of the wire, this is frowned upon in the car audio install world. I used a dremal tool to make some extra room in one of the corners where the harness connects. This way the harness can snap back into place, and the wire has a bit of breathing room. Now you got the wire out the door, and need to get it in the car. This took many a bong rips to figure out. The best way is to just accept it and drill a hole. If you have a decent length drill bit, you should be able to get a reasonable enough angle to force a hole, then you dont need to mess w/ the fenders or removing the door. Just run a rubber grommet and you should be cool.
For me, the real f*ing challenge was finding the wire once I ran it through my drilled hole, there is a whole bunch of shat up in there under the dash near where the wire comes out. Find a little kid, or a chick w/ small hands to reach up in there and find the wire, I couldent believe how much of a pain in the *** that was.
My install proved to be super hard, I had heard that 6 1/2 in front speakers fit with minamal modifacations, wrong, I had to straight up make wooden spacers to replace the plastic basket, super ghetto, especially considering I am running $450 polk Momo components! I also had to adjust my power window track to as deep as it goes, otherwise my speaker would bottom out on it, and couldent be mounted. Now my font windows are slow as hell, and squeak like a bit#h. They will probably take on a bunch of water this winter and drown my speakers. Maby it's a 4-dr issue. Good luck!!!

 

Haha... I had to make wood speaker mounts for my Eclipse components in my 93' Lude... I learned and just bought the 6" speakers that fit this time for the Teg.

Good stereo installs are a LOT of work... but that's why they're GOOD stereo installs. I spent almost a week building my box into the trunk floor... and I'm still not content with it... but everyone says how sweet it is? *Shrug*

Anyhow, I've heard a lot of people doing as Cru did and trimming and edge out of the plastic wiring harness.
I'd personally spend the time removing the fender before trying to get the door realigned... ugh. I thought about using a flex extension and a bit to get this... but didn't. Anyhow it's done... let us know how it turned out.

 

hahahah you wanna see GHETTO???


now that's ghetto!!! i cut and used 3 rings(which aren't perfect circles) of 1/2 inch fiberboard and glued them together to make a spacer deep enough to fit those speakers...... as you can see I can't even fit the stock cover back on anymore

anyways back on topic, when I ran 12 gauge wire into my doors I removed the fenders and drilled a ghetto hole into the side of my doors right underneath the stock harness..... water does get in but not much plus there's a stock drain in the door so water exits pretty fast.... ok so after i did all this here's my advice.........

1. jack up front of the car
2. remove the 2 front tires
3. remove the fender well trim
4. abra ca dabra look inside and as you can see you can access the door harness and do any drilling you need to do.... WITHOUT the removal of the door(which i don't recommend, it's a bitch to realign perfectly), or the fenders(which also requires you to remove your side skirts and front bumper)

Hope this helps!

 

Alright.. I think this is my plan.
1) Take off the fender, not the door.
2) Cut a small corner out of the grommet (When you guy say cut the harness, I'm guessing you mean the grommet and not the actual harness..?) and run the speaker wire through a corner of the grommet.
3) With the fender off, I'll just silicone the hell out of that corner of the grommet.. the rest of the grommet should be flush already.
4) So I would have to cut 4 grommets, and seal 4 holes right? 2 for each door, 2 for the wire going into the car...

And now that I think of it, how do I get at the grommet that is inside the door?! Taking off the fender only gives you access to the grommet on the car, not the ones on the door...?

How's my plan, and how the hell do I get to the other grommet?

 

reach in from the speaker hole

 

Hmmm... I guess you're right. I just thought siliconing the outside would be better for some reason... but I can't think of why that would be the case.

I'm retarded.

 

ok here is my 2 cents, and ive done this before.

i had to run a wire for my alarm into my door. i took off the door panel, and then i ran the wire through the factory grommet into the door jam. when you llok at the door and where the hinges are is a black tube which wires go through, if you un plug it, you can drill a hole into the plug. there is plenty of room to avoid any wires there. now getting it from there to inside under the dash is hard. it took alot of work. i used a coat hanger to feed the wire. it just takes time.

now when i hooked my front speakers up to my amp, which is what i guess your doing, i didnt want to do all that work. i just ran the wires to behind my head unit, and hooked it up to the factory plug. much easier. i bet your thinking that yopu wont get as much power throught the stock speaker wire, but it isnt going to make any difference at all what size wire you use.

hope this helps

 

Well, yes, it does make a difference what size wire you use. The stock speaker wire is some insignificant 20 or 22 gauge wire, when it should be 16. There isn't a big difference in sound quality, but my speakers are powered by an amp and you need bigger gauge wiring.

 

true true, if you runnning high powered components or whatever you'll need lower gauge wire

 

Heres by bootleg setup I mentioned.....