Component Speakers in door/dash

I recently bought some component speakers to replace the door 6x9s and
dash 5-1/4 speakers in my 2002 Caravan. I'm having troubles figuring
out how to run new speaker wire to the door speakers. I see there's a
wire harness where the door meets the door frame (for removing the
door, I guess?). I could probably either use or replace the speaker
wire from the speaker to the harness, but I'm not sure how to get the
wire from the crossover to the harness on the door frame side.

Has anyone done this or did you come up with another solution? I'm
also looking for tips on where and how to mount the crossover. Looking
under the dash, I'll probably just strap it to something on each side,
but again, if you came up with a good spot / solution, I'd appreciate
any tips.

Thanks!

 

If you are going to replace the speakers (remove them) why not just use the
wires that are already there once you take the old speakers out?

Glenn Beasley
Chrysler Tech

 

That would be ideal of course, but because these are component
speakers, it complicates things a bit. Instead of speaker wire going
directly from the deck to the speakers, the wire will first go to the
component crossover, where it is then split and separate wires go to
the tweeter in the dash and the 6" woofer in the door.

Michael

 

Maybe I just don't understand.. but if you take a speaker out (disconnect
the terminals) and install a speaker in the same place, then reconnect the
terminals from the old speaker what difference does it make?

Glenn

 

are you running bigger gauge wire for the components? due to a amp upgard then

u will need to piggybac wires the best you can in the boot to the bbot are
remove the factory wires and replace with your new ones, if not then use the
factory wires on both side of the door and jamb like were it goes thru th ekick
panel t the door jamb boots and hook up your crossover there but the factory
only tells you which one is positive in th e factory manual so you will need to
get tahat figured out or you will be wasting your time i hope you got a new
head unit>
you do have to be careful since the pci bus does interface with the factory
radio...it's a little white connector on the bac of the radio that only has two
wires in it and one may be missing hope this helps you in some way

 

Component speakers are different than your typical full range speakers
in that they are separated into two speakers (tweeter and woofer) each
getting specific frequencies from the crossover. The deck speaker
wires go to the crossover first. Here's a diagram that shows a
typical wiring for component configuration:

http://akamaipix.crutchfield.com/ca/reviews/20041109/14-Receiver-XO-spkrs.jpg

The black rectangle represents the crossover.

Whereas your typical two or three way full range speakers have the
tweeter as part of the woofer speaker. In this case, the wires from
the deck go straight to the speaker.

Michael

 

The wire isn't being upgraded due to a bigger gauge, I just thought it
would be better to run new wire since in the Caravan, the dash
speakers are running in parallel with the door speakers. The new
components would definitely not support this type of wiring, not to
mention they need to be directly wired to the crossover.

I do have an after market deck in - the pci bus you mention, would I
only need to worry about that with a factory deck? I'm not sure what
it is.

Michael

 

Your best bet is to replace the 6x9 with the woofer and just add the
tweeter to the door close to ear level. You can either leave the dash
speaker intact (bad option) or simply disconnect it (much better option).

Ditch the original 6x9 and connect the crossover to the wire that used to
be connected to the 6x9. (just lay the crossover in the bottom of the
door). Be sure to hook plus to plus and minus to minus.

Mount the tweeter on the door close to ear level and run the wire down
behind the door panel to the crossover, which is already sitting in the
bottom of the door.

Unless you want to reroute the wire from the crossover to the tweeter back
through the door into the passenger compartment and up to the dash (big
PITA), the tweeter in the door is the way to go.

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I guess I had originally set out to put
the tweeter in the dash location to prevent any permanent scaring of
the interior of the van (in case I choose to take the speakers with me
when it's time for a new vehicle).

Also, I was figuring I'd place the crossover under the dash which
would have easy access to the tweeter, but then it makes it
challenging to get wire to the woofer, unless I can find the factory
speaker wire heading to the door, and just connect it to the crossover
instead.

One thing I'm not sure of is how the factory dash / door speakers are
wired in parallel. Do they split right at the factory harness? Is it
spliced somewhere along the way? I guess if it was spliced anywhere
after the crossover placement, it wouldn't really matter since it
wouldn't be connecting to anything any way. The tweeters are
pre-wired and would just connect directly to the crossover.

Hmmm... more to think about. Thanks for your time.

Michael

 

Might not be worth it unless you're looking to sell the van within a year
or two. If you really want to though, you could simply put back the stock
pieces and stick a "button" or some kind of "attractive screw" where the
hole for the component tweeter was. This also eliminates resplicing the
wiring under the dash when you put the OEM speakers back.

You can do that, but then you'd have to find the wires leading to the door
speakers and tap into that, which is a big PITA. If you sell the vehicle
and take your components with you, you then have to resplice the wires
back, leaving a bit of a mess.

My guess is that all speakers run full range, as I doubt that DC would
spend the money on true crossovers in an OEM system. My '03 Dakota with
the Infinity Premium Sound (which wasn't too 'premium' btw) is that way -
the woofer in the door ran full range and the tweeter in the sail panel
simply had a filter on it to cut off the low frequencies. So in essence,
the wiring to both the woofer and the tweeter carried the entire full
range.

I would guess that the van's wiring simply runs the dash and door speakers
full range right to the head unit (or amps as the case may be). If both
the dash and door speakers are 'front' when you use the head unit's fader,
this is most likely the case. To find out for sure, you'll probably need
the wiring diagrams for your vehicle. I obtained mine from the dealer -
he simply copied the few appropriate pages from his shop manual for me.

Glad to help.