996 Door Panel; Speaker Replacement

[acourvil]

How difficult is it to remove the door panels for the 996? I see the instructions in Loren's DIY section, but also see a note that indicates they need testing.

Does anyone have the dimensions for the Bose speakers in the doors or something that shows the wiring? Are the door speakers teamed with the dash speakers, or is there a separate channel from the amp? The spaker on the left passenger side is cutting out, like a wire is loose. If I take the panel off to secure the wiring, I'm inclined to go ahead and replace the speaker with something better, and I'd prefer not to have to open it up more than once.

[Loren]

Your shouldn't need to take the whole door panel off to change the speakers. Part of the problem on the later cars is that Porsche now has several lower door panels for standard (old style), Bose, and Harmon sound systems. They are all similar but a little different.

[acourvil]

Do you have anything that shows the paneling for the the Bose system in a '04 C4S, or know where I might find it? The diagrams I've seen seem to show one-piece door panels. The panel looks like the speaker section may be separate, but after a quick look last night and this morning (neither in very good lighting conditions), I couldn't tell how to take it off (i.e., no obvious mounting screws). It would be great if this could be done separately; I'm a bit reluctant to fool around with anything close to the airbag.

[acourvil]

O.k., I pulled the door panels (part way) and replaced the door speakers. The panels are a single piece, so it's not possible to just remove the speaker section. However, you also do not have to take the panel all the way off in order to access the speaker box.

I removed the bottom and side clips, and left the clips along the top in place. This allows the panel to rotate enough to get access to everything in the lower part of the door and avoids the need to do anything around the air bag or remove the cable or electrical connections for the door handle. You also do not need to pull the footwell light at the bottom of the panel.

The door handle cover clips were different than what is shown in the DIY instructions. Instead of having 2 clips, the cover has clips in 5 places, and has alignment posts/recepticles to line things up (a design improvement, I think):

Later I'll post a few pics showing the Bose speaker setup as well as some add'l info about replacing them. At this point, I've replaced both the front/back speakers and the door speakers. I think it has substantially improved the sound, although part of the issue was that one of the door spekers was blown (not a loose wire).

Edited March 30, 2004 by acourvil