Custom Door Pod Construction
By - Vince Galti (VinVin)
The problem of not being able to fit good speakers in the front doors of your car is now solved with this DIY guide on how to make your own, lightweight door pods. With any technique such as this, every time you do it you’ll get better, and modify designs to get a broad range of effects and styles. The pods made in this guide, are for the front doors of a VL Commodore. JL V-Series splits are the speakers going in, with the tweeter going in the factory 4” dash position, the pods only need to accommodate the 6” woofers.
NOTE: The guide will only show the construction of one pod, the other pod should be an exact reflection. Construct two of everything shown. The following is strongly recommended during the cutting and sanding stages.
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STAGE ONE: Skeleton Construction
STEP 1: Create your pod design. Pay attention to the insides of the door: where can the speaker hang in, what’s in the way etc. Will the pod touch the dash when the door is closed? Does the door have a window winder you must compensate for?
In this case, yes there is a window winder so the pod will have to go around it. Once you have marked your base out onto a piece of no less then 6mm MDF, cut it out. Mark on the base which sides are against the door and which sides are going to face the inside. Now round the edges of the inside face of the pod as shown:
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Also cut an access hole for the magnet of the speaker to hang through when mounted.
STEP 2: You now have to get the grill of the speaker and cut a 12mm MDF ring that the speaker will fit into.. This will be what the speaker is screwed into.
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Allow a 20mm hangover around the edge of the grill.
STEP 3: Now you must create another MDF ring of any width, that will fit around the grill and end up flush with the top.
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Sand the edges round as shown. These two rings must now be screwed/glued together as shown without the grill inside.
STEP 4: The next step is to create small 18mm MDF stumps, that will set the angle and height of the mounting rings previously created. Once the location is set, check by adding in the speaker.
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STEP 5: By placing the speaker into the ring, then placing the ring onto the stumps, you can get an idea on how the finished product will sit. Here are some views of the way I’ve set this one up.
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Once the position is right, glue/screw the rings to the stumps.
NOTE: This “skeleton” must be strong, but not overboard, because its real strength will be obtained once the fibreglass is added.
So what you have now should resemble this:
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At this point you should go back to the car and see how they sit against the trim.
STAGE Two: Fibreglass Moulding.
For this stage you will have to go purchase a few items.
1. A 500ml tin of “Fibreglass Resin” (looks like blue dish washing liquid”
2. “Catalyst” Fibreglass Resin hardener (little eye dropper bottle)
3. Cheap paint brushes
4. 1 meter of t-shirt material (able to stretch in both X and Y directions)
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Brands shouldn’t matter as long as it’s the same stuff.
STEP 6: Get the material and with the aid of a hot glue gun (or staplegun), stretch the material over the skeleton and glue it on the opposite side.. Do this all the way around, making sure the material is tight over the mould. Flip it over to see the shape you are left with. Poke at it to make sure the material is tight. If its soft, break the glue and stretch it more. Soft spots will ripple later on when the fibreglass is applied.
When you finish, staple inside the ring so that the material takes the shape of the ring as shown:
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Cut the excess material off to neaten it up and get it ready for the fibreglass.
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OK, so this is what you should be looking at so far.
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You are now ready to fibreglass.
STEP 7: Open the can of Resin and squirt half the bottle of catalyst into it. Mix it up well with the cheap paint brush until it turns from blue to a green colour. At this point, allow the mixture to sit for about 5 minutes, changing the colour to a lighter green or even brown.. Mix it up again and apply it to the material thick and evenly. It will dribble everywhere so be sure to lay plastic underneath, also sit the trims off the ground, because if the fibreglass touches the ground, you’ll need a crow bar to get the pods off later. Focus mainly on putting the resin where you will be leaving the material, not the centre of the ring, because we will be cutting that out later, nor the back of the pods.. Use up all the resin, there is never too much, the more you put, the harder the pod becomes.
This is what you should have:
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Once the fibreglass is dry, cut out the unwanted parts, and give the top a light sand.. On the back, cut the fibreglass right back to the MDF leaving a clean finish.
STEP 8: To trim moulds, apply glue to both the vinyl and the pods and allow it to sit for about 10 minutes.. Lay the vinyl over the pod and rub into place. A heat gun will allow you to stretch the vinyl into shapes and around corners without creases. Once finished you should have something like this.
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You are now ready to mount the pods.
STEP 9: Mounting the pods. Take one plain old VL.
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Now remove the trim, and lay the pods on the trim in the desired place. Mark where the trim has to be cut, and do so. Screw your pods to the trim, then put the trim back on the door. Like so. Run wires. Now add 2 screws from the speaker cavity, through the pod MDF backing, through the trim and into the steel of the door, in essence, screwing the pod to the steel of the door through the trim.
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Now put the door back together, and if everything was done right, you should get a great finish like this.
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[EDITED by shiny_car Mar 05 2007]