Olive - Meanderthal’s BS BL

[Mark S.]

I don’t know if I can just leave the tubing in place all the time or if I need to remove it every time.

Get some Shoe Goo (sometimes called E6000). You can get it at Wally World. It's a pretty good general purpose adhesive, almost like RTV, but sets up a little harder. Should work fine to hold the tubing on your pinch weld.

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[Meanderthal]

Subwoofer Replaced

I want to start by saying if you are really wanting deep rumbling bass that shakes everything within the vicinity, this mod is not for you. If you find that the bass is just a little lacking and want to fill it in within reason, then keep reading.

I had looked briefly for a potential upgrade for the 6X9 subwoofer in the B&O system. I found something that just would not have fit, but I didn’t know until I did this that for sure it would not have fit. I happened to get an email from Amazon with a list of other PowerBass speakers. In that list was a set of 6X9 speakers. I got that email because someone else had asked about which PowerBass speakers to buy to replace the door speakers. What peaked my curiosity was that they were from PowerBass and I have been very happy with the door speakers. If you haven’t done it yet, take a look at this post to see what you definitely should do. The other thing that drew my attention was that they could be run at 2 ohms. That means more power to the speaker, if the amplifier will drive a load that load. I was left to make the experiment myself, since I haven’t seen anyone else attempt this.

Here are some pictures comparing the PowerBass unit to the Ford unit:

What you can’t totally tell from the pictures is the cone on the Ford speaker has no structural integrity. If it wasn’t glued around the edge it would just about flap in a breeze. In the picture the Ford one has some damage because the cover grille was glued down to the edge of the cone, so removing that grille to reuse it requires essentially destroying the Ford part.

Okay, this was a total experiment. I did not document this entire process with pictures of the parts and the modifications I made. If you are not somewhat skilled and confident in what you can do, this project is not for you. This is not simply “plug and play”; it requires work, creativity, mechanical intuition, and guts. Do not attempt this unless you are willing to take on those qualities. I will not be responsible for any failures or damage you do to your BS. I am going to try and show what I can and describe what was done because I don’t have pictures of what exactly I did.

I have used a few images/videos that other people have already shared. Thanks to those people for putting this info here for people to find.

In order to get at the subwoofer, you have to get behind the panel in the back passenger side. This video does a decent job of letting you know what you have to do to get in there.

Here is what the Ford subwoofer full assembly looks like:

That is how it sits in the BS, more or less. You can see the 4 bolt holes, where you will need a 7mm socket/nut driver to remove it. The electrical connector has a little button/lever to push and it then releases pretty easy. Once you get the assembly removed, you need a T25 torx driver to remove the speaker from the housing. To remove the grille from the speaker, you have to get aggressive with a couple flat head screw drivers and work hard at it. It will come, but it doesn’t want to. The glue is very flexible so you have to push it past the point that it wants to just go back.

The screw holes for the two speakers line up really well. The issue is that the baskets are different, but not that much different. What that means is that some trimming will be required to fit the PB speaker into the Ford housing. I’m going to outline the areas that need to be trimmed, but if you have the parts in front of you, it will be much clearer what needs to be done.

In the picture below the yellow marker spots are corners that will need to be trimmed. I used a Dremel with a cylindrical burr to trim those corners, basically to the point that you almost cut entirely through the wall.

The next thing you need to trim on the housing is essentially the entire 6X9 ellipse. Not all the way through the housing, just like about 1mm. I just ran the same Dremel bit at a slight angle and trimmed lightly. I went around the ellipse twice to the point that the trimmed area was as wide as the cylinder of the burr is tall. Sorry, not easy to describe that in words. Keep in mind that the speaker and grille should be removed at this point. The trimming path is highlighted in red here:

The reason for the trimming is that the basket on the PB speaker is a little bigger than the Ford unit. This is going to require some deformation of the housing when you put the PB speaker in. Doing this trimming means that the deformation is less, or maybe even possible. I could not get it assembled without doing this step.

Now, you’ll have to remove the plastic pieces around the edge of the face of the PB speaker, in order to fit the Ford grille on. You can see the plastic ring around the front of the PB speaker in the picture(s) above. It requires a little force but it comes off pretty easy. It is glued on.

In order for the Ford grille to fit on the PB speaker, you will have to trim the ends of the ears on the grille. Highlighted here in blue:

Now it is time to install the PB speaker into the Ford housing with the Ford grille. Wait, you are first going to have to cut the pigtail wires from that green connector and wire the PB speaker. In order to wire it at 2 ohm, you will need to connect positive to positive and negative to negative on the back of the PB speaker. Then connect the green wire from the pigtail to the positive terminal and the black wire to the negative.

Now, time to install the speaker in the housing with the grille. It is not going to just fall into place. You are going to have to get all of the screws started. Then, slowly tighten each screw a little at a time. Just keep tightening each screw 1/2 turn at a time and move from one, to another, to another, to another, and then hit the first one again and repeat until it is fully seated into the housing. This is really the hardest part. This is where you are deforming the housing to some extent in order to fit this speaker. Just in case you are wondering, there is no issue with the extra 1/4” or so of depth for the PB speaker.

Now, you just have to put everything back into your BS.

So, what is the end result? I really feel like this completes the stereo for my needs. What I have noticed is that there is now enough bass that the rear view mirror will vibrate from the bass, once the volume is set at about 18-20. This is now a quality sound system the way it should have come from the factory. B&O should completely cut ties with Ford based on this stereo system and insist in the future at least some base level of speaker quality, if not using their own speakers instead of whatever garbage Ford has sourced.

BTW, it does take about 2-3 hours of listening to break in this new speaker. Don’t be disappointed when you first listen to it. Give it a little time and I’m pretty sure you won’t regret doing this.

If anyone local wants to buy the other speaker of the pair for $40, let me know.

 

[WildFord]

I read this again about the sub replacement and thought of trying it myself…. But I think I’ll wait, hoping PB will make a direct replacement speaker without the need of those modifications. You did a god job. First tread I’ve read on replacing the sub woofer.

These OEM speakers are really bad

 

[Meanderthal]

I read this again about the sub replacement and thought of trying it myself…. But I think I’ll wait, hoping PB will make a direct replacement speaker without the need of those modifications. You did a god job. First tread I’ve read on replacing the sub woofer.

These OEM speakers are really bad

It is really not a difficult job, just takes some time, care, and attention.

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