At last! Managed to get some more done!

After finishing some DiY to make the main bedroom bigger, I took advantage of the good weather and got made some good progress.

First job I tackled was upgrading the earthing. The existing earth lead from the battery to the body was shockingly small. Probabaly about 10awg and the connection to the body was badly corroded so I simply cut it at the bolt. I stipped the insulation off and it was black and oxidised inside from end to end.

I replaced it with a length of 0 awg that I had aquired and found a vacant threaded hole an inch or two away from the original;, sanded back to bare clean metal and bolted it up good and tight.

While I was at it, I had a length of 4awg and ran an earth from the battery to the engine, connecting at the point where there is an earth strap to the bulkhead. For good measure, I replaced this puny little strap at the same time.

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I then moved to the back of the car where the amp is going to reside and emptied the wheel well and made access to the bare metal. I found a suitable earthing point and fixed an earth post using a hefty hex bolt and nylock.

I termonated the earth with a fancy reducer ready to run to the amp/amps.

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Then, I turned to running the live to the rear. I had got lucky on eBay and picked up a full 2awg kit for next to nothing and pulled all the trim along the carpet/doors and threaded it along there from one end to the other. As luck would have it, there is an unused gromet with 3 ready made wotsits to take cables through the bulkhead under the skuttle drain pipe and managed without any bother, to route the live through there and up to the 150amp fuse that I had fixed to the side of the existing fuse box and then on to the battery itself. Until I am ready, the fuse holder has just a blank in it to not allow any current through. The boot end, has a nice 4 way splitter to allow three 4awg leads from the terminal block. I made sure that the cable through the car was tucked carefully away from any sharp edges and cable tied where I could and also used some funky stick backed anchors to keep the cable tidy and stationery.

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I then tidied up and started to think about the amp installation......

I have been gathering various bits and have 3 rather good DLS amps (Swedish of course!) and for now, I am going to keep it simple and use my A5 which is a 3 channel (stereo front and mono sub). When time allows, I shall be running with more power and maybe use my A3 and/or my A4.

I started by making a mounting to hang the amp on which looks pretty basic for now but it will be boxed in and carpetted so as to hide the cables etc and all that will be seen, will be the front heatsink.

I mounted the base to the Volvo trim using T nuts after using the pull up panel as the template to cut the shape. The amp itself, is held on with screw in threaded inserts and nice stainless steel hex bolts.

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You can see that I have made the depth so as to be able to use the rear dicky-seats and not take up any load space.

to be continued!

Finally, I fitted my first trial tweeter mounts which I had fixed up to a pair of spair A pillar trims.

Quite happy with the principle of the what I have done but I need to recover the driver's side one as I got in a pickle with the contact glue and made a few wrinkles and creases! I shall power them up and see what the aim is like for sound but I think I want them to be a little more on axis (after advice from DLS).

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Here you can see the passenger side ready for covering with the vinyl which I robbed from one of my factory partners in Poland. The vinyl is a very good match and nice and thin so can stretch.

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Hopefully next week, I will finish the doors and run the speaker cables (they are going along the roof line behind the plastic trim with the crossovers in the boot next to the amp, ready for going active)and with a bit of luck and a not too demanding missus, will have some sounds!

Watch this space!

I would also add, that the upgraded earthing has seemingly cured my slight cough and fart on initial starting so perhaps this is something people should consider.......I have loads of nice fat cable and plenty of big ring terminals and a fancy hydraulic cripmer to make them up.

I would recommend the battery to earth, battery to engine and engine to bulkhead as I have done.

Incidentally, I shall be upgrading the live feed from the alternator back to the battery at some point but this looks pretty decent so it would maybe be more cosmetic than functional.

PM me if interested, I'll go figure a cost tocover my time and bits but it wont be much and I have enough for about 10 sets.

nice work!!!!:bounce:

Good job Soldier :mgshoot:

Well done, a very interesting piece of work.

Good work! I thought i recognised the DLS tweeters in your previous threads. Should be a very nice setup when complete. I used to be quite into car audio a few years ago, had many setups (both sq and spl) and even competed in db drag for a few years.

My last big setup consisted of rainbow comps, genesis amps, pl aliantes, alpine 7944, changer and 701 processor. Hmmm those were the days :)

Don't forget to sound deaden, its going to be a right pain with all the rattles from the boot of an 850.

Ed

Hey Ed! Some nice kit you mention there.

I have put a layer of (cheapo) bitumen deadening in the spare wheel well as it resonated like a bell! It seems though, the rest of the car is fairly rattle free......although when the twin 12" Hertz subs start to pound, I am sure a few more will come to light!