ive got a 94 civic hatch, and i want to neaten up my boot area.
cos at the moment ive just got my amp screwed to the wooden boot floor that covers the spare wheel.

theres a fair amount of space under the wooden cover.
but im not that good at woodwork type stuff. havent had much experience.
and most likely dont have the right tools for the job either.

curious if its possible to get someone else to make a simple mdf shelving system up...
nothing flash just a spot for two amps. one on each of the spare wheel (plenty of room)
and a new boot floor with a hinge so i can get the spare wheel out.

at the moment the amps on the floor so im not too confident about placing stuff in there.


any ideas where i could get such a thing made up?
and how much it would generally cost to do?

something simple and neat.

where in VIC are you?
there are several great installers around

north eastern suburbs.

ringwood area.

so any installer should be able to do what im asking?
or do i have to go to a specialist?

A specialest would be best.

i rang gary's car audio in mitcham
they said they can do it. but when i asked for a rough price, he said 400-500ish.

this seems rediculously high for what i want.

doesnt sound that high to me, and I dont even know much about this sort of stuff. Remember its a pro shop and once you start hacking into bits of wood and cutting carpet and gluing and trying to make it all fit, just count up the number of hours it takes you to do anything even remotely decent, divide that by 2 (takes a pro about half the time) then multiply by $80p/h. suddenly 5 hours work (ie $400) to do a boot install is looking cheap...

Having said that, I (and probably you) dont have $400 to throw at someone just to mess around with a bit of mdf, so I understand where you're coming from. So go borrow a circular saw and a jigsaw off your mates, get some supplies from the hardware store, and keep a tab on how many hours you rack up and some photos for the forum. If you ask REAL nice 'n stuff, maybe someone here might be able to give you a hand...

just maybe not me....

= )

oh yeah, and try and stay away from BJ hifi/crapfield/etc, cause they will do a cheap craparse job and then you WILL feel like you've done your money.

yeah thats what im thinking now.
in all honesty i cant imagine it being that hard aslong as its thought out well before hand.

just curious how people generally mdf their boots?

do you make and dummy fit everything up with cardboard/paper to get the sizes and shapes right.

then cut out the appropriate mdf and fit?

exact.

sorry to let you know though for woodworking dumbo's such as ourselves it is bloody hard work, especially trying to make stuff fit properly. However, the sense of satisfaction is totally worth it. I'm still really happy with my 6.5" speaker boxes I built, even if they're a bit NQR and badly finished. I still built 'em though!

also do a scale plan on excel or powerpoint or something. that way you've got something with all the measurements on it.

good luck with that... : )

That is exactly how you do it.

WIth what you are talking about i would normmaly make a template for the board to mount the amps, then make templates for the actual board that would become the floor of the boot. ( from what you aide you wanted the amps sunk into the floor of the boot so they did not get knocked around to much.

Once you haev your two templates you then need to think of where you would like the boot floor to fold up from so you can get to the spare wheel. then you need to cut the boot floor template so you now have two pieces remember to think about where you would like to put the hinges, or are you just going to have a piece that is taken out. at this point you need to know if the powere cable will be taken out as well.

As you can see there is a lot to think about and part of the $400 - 500 you get charged is for the installers experience and knowledge of these things so you dont have to think about them.

The other option you have is look for furniture or kitchen builders in your area. they have the skills and tools to build you a MDF floor for your boot. just go to them with a neatly drawn picture and some rought measurements and have a talk and you may get the price down to around $200 or so. just remember that they are not going to think about vents for air flow for the amps and where power cable will be run. but if you can handle all the planning and designing and just get then to cut, fit and join the picese of MDF it is a cheaper way of doing it.

mate when i did my install myself i didnt how to use power saws and jig saws and routers and stuff i went out and brought a large sheet of mdf and marked it out and on all my wasted mdf i used that for practice until i was confident i knew how to work them and i think my install turned out great. but remember measure twice cut once.

thats an idea i hadnt considered, taking all the measurments to a kitchen builder ect.

i cant imagine it being that hard planning it all out. just need to remember everything and work out where everything needs to go.

one thing im not sure about is mounting...
is it a case of just deciding where the best spots would be for supporting the weight then drilling into the metal and securing with screws?

dont know if theres any issues with water ect getting into the boot area.


appreciate all the info guys.

I've kinda got the same question, how do you secure the false floor to the car? I imagine you use say 2 to 3 wooden batons across the bottom and screw into those, but how are they secured to the metal without puncturing the fuel tank? can you use liquid nails or something?

Dont drill into the metal. Use some liquid nails and glue some blocks of wood or mdf onto the metal then screw the false floor into these.

lol yeah that makes alot more sense!

cheers mate