Door Panel Speaker Grill Removal Question

[PlasticMan]

Does anyone know how to take out the door panel speaker grills without going through the whole "Door Panel DIY" instructions? It's not clear in those directions how to take off the flanges holding the grill in place without destroying the flange pieces or breaking the pegs which anchor the grill in place. Thanks in advance.

[Rob in WA]

I'm in the process of upgrading my speakers and amp too.

Try e-mailing Rod @

hotrod930@email.msn.com

At www.caraudioinnovations.com he's VERY knowledgable about the 996 stereo components.

[acourvil]

If you are asking if the speaker grills can be removed from the outside without removing at least part of the panel, I think the answer is no. You do not have to remove the panel entirely, however. I swapped the speakers out recently, and was able to do it without taking the panel all of the way off; I left the clips in place along the top, and just let the panel swing out far enough to get access to the speaker area. That way, you don't have to mess around with the latch mecahnism or do anything around the air bag. You do have to take off the outer part of the door handle and remove the bolts that hold the panel in place, and also pop the door clips at the bottom and on the sides. BTW, the speaker grills are not actually attached to the speakers; they are part of the door panel and just cover the general area. (My comments based on '04 C4S w/ Bose option).

[PlasticMan]

I was referring to the metal clips or flanges that anchor the speaker grill in the door panel. I don't know of a good way to take those off without bending or breaking them. I'll try Rob's suggestion to contact the guy at Car Innovations. Thanks for the reference, Rob.

[mattmarsden]

How easy is it to fit the speaker grills and housings to a door that doesn't have them on? What part numbers do I need?

[uberjeph]

I installed painted AS speaker grills in the doors w/o taking off the whole panel. I ended up taking out the bolts that hold the handle to the door, and then popped off the bottom half of the door panel (be careful & go slow). I undid the bolts since it allowed me to pull the door panel open just a bit more to get to the top of the speaker grill.

Now you need to lay on the ground and force the panel open. Getting the pop rivets off of the posts was pretty hard. I used a thin blade screwdriver to try and bend the rivets open, then they'd slide off the posts (don't break the posts!). once they're off i'd just bend the rivets back into shape (they're pretty thin). On other ones, i'd kind of spin them off--however, they ended up cutting part of the posts off.

So i ended up with some posts shorter than others which is fine as long as there's enough material for the rivets to bite into. just don't go changing out the grills more than once...

Hope that helps!

Jeff...now with added AS grills