DIY: External Bed Speakers with a factory head unit

[FONT=&quot]I am putting the DIY for those of you who want to install some speakers into your bed, I am not sure of the 1st gen's or 3rd gen's are exactly the same as I am not positive your beds are the same as my 2nd Gen. Some of you might ask why you would even care to bother with this, Reasons may vary, but Tailgating, just hanging out in the bed, I like to get ready for skiing while listening to music which is my primary reason. Anyways there aren't a ton of threads that will tell you how to do this so I put mine together and decided I would do my best to show everyone how, if you all need more pics or info let me know I will monitor the thread and you can also message me.
One more thing... I have a Double Cab so those of you with an access cab or no cab will do it a bit differently but overall its the same concept

Materials:[/FONT]

• [FONT=&quot]Scoshe LOC80[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]2 Channel Amp (you don't want to wire this in to an amp that you want running all the time for a sub inside your vehicle or additional speakers, if you intend to put a sub in the bed of your truck as well then you will want a 4 channel amp)[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Amp Wiring Kit[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Toggle Switch[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]2 4x6 Marine Certified Speakers[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Wire connectors of some sort[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Lots of Speaker Wire[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]2 in. Galvanized corner braces 4-Pack (L-brackets from Home depot)[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]1 in. Galvanized corner braces 4-Pack (L-brackets from Home depot)[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Hardware cloth (metal of some sort to protect the speakers from both theft and debris)[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Screws (preferably not flat head or Phillips head in order to prevent removal to secure hardware cloth)[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Machine Screws and nuts to secure l brackets to speakers and bed storage inserts[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]Washers for both the screws and machine screws at least 1/2 in. Dia. or more[/FONT]
• [FONT=&quot]RCA Patch Cable[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]So for starters you need to removed the back door panels on both sides.
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[FONT=&quot]Then you will run wire to the door from the side panel through the wire protector and all the way around to your speakers.[/FONT]



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[FONT=&quot]Then you will be splicing your new speaker wire into the rear speaker wire, (You can do this anywhere you want in your vehicle, I chose to do it here because its an easy place to work in, and I didn't want to attach the wire at my h/u because eventually I want to change my H/U and this will create the least amount of confusion when wiring in a new adapter) I colored the route of the original wire green to make it more obvious, and then colored the new wire red to make it easy to understand whats happening.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]You are then going to route the speaker wire through the side wall down to the floor, under the floor panels to the rear of the cab and then to the Scosche Loc80 [/FONT]


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[FONT=&quot]I removed the back panels on my back wall in my cab to route all the wire underneath and behind them. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]you then want to wire the Loc80 to the speaker wire coming off the rear speakers its pretty self explanatory.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]At this point you will use the RCA Patch cable to attach the Scoshe Loc80 to your Amp, And then wire your amp to your vehicle, there are instructions all over the internet on how to correctly wire an Amp so I am not going to go through a step by step on that. There is one major difference between wiring this amp for your in bed speakers and wiring an amp for something staying inside your truck, this is where the toggle switch comes in.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]So when wiring your amp you will usually wire a remote cable to your stereo H/U (this tells the amp to turn on and off with your stereo so the amp doesn't destroy your battery), Because you are NOT A TOOL you want to wire it to a toggle switch then to your H/U so you can turn it off when you are driving around in residential area's and just driving around town. [/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]I got my toggle switch at pep boys and I didn't verify that it would fit straight into the Blank Adapters and then drilled a hole for it before verifying it would fit so I tore mine apart to make it fit (I am sure there is a better way you should try and find it)[/FONT]
So make sure you wire that remote wire from the H/U to the toggle switch and then to the Amp so you can turn off the amp when you don't need to utilize the in bed speakers. And dont forget the grounding wire!

On my 06 Taco with the factory head unit I had to splice this wire into the solid grey wire coming off the back of the H/U.
Alright So at this point you should have all the wires inside the truck done,
the Amp hooked up and you should only need to run the wire from your truck bed to the AMP and then install the speakers.






Alright So at this point you should have all the wires inside the truck done,
the Amp hooked up and you should only need to run the wire from your truck bed to the AMP and then install the speakers.


I forgot to take a picture of the storage boxes removed but to remove them all you have to do is pull from the top of the boxes and they will come out top first really easy. You then want to drop the wire from where the storage boxes were and then drop the wire down on top of the wheel well and make sure it falls towards the front of the truck.

Climb under the truck the and look at where the bed meets the cab underneath on the sides and you should be able to see/find your speaker wire, then you want to route it above the muffler and drive shaft from the right side, or above the fuel tank and drive shaft from the left side to a little rubber cap on the underside of your cab, This comes out underneath the carpet on the very back side of the rear cab seats in the double cab. I popped this out cut a "+" sign in it and then pushed the wire through the "+" sign and routed to the amp and hooked up the wire.

 

At this point you want to pop the storage boxes in half, all it requires is some pulling and you can get them apart.
This is where you start adding the L Brackets to your speaker to secure it to your storage box, the 2 in L Bracket attached at the rear of the speaker because it gives me a little more room to play with when installing the speaker, then the 1 in bracket I attached on the front of the speaker for reach purposes. Make sure to measure where your holes go or drill in holes with the speaker pushed inside the box and the brackets where you want them and then install your machine screws head on the outside so the shank doesn't interfere with re-installation of your box. Run your wire straight through the drain holes in the back half of your box and attach them to your speakers and at this point everything should be completely hooked up so do a quick check to make sure all your speakers are working correctly and that your toggle switch works to turn the speakers on and off.





Get your Hardware Wire and cut it, I was able to cut mine with scissors and I cut it twice as long as the box folded it over on it self to provide a more solid barrier to keep someone from breaking through to steal speakers and then painted my own design into it (Paint is great regardless of whether you want it to be more personal or just one solid color to provide rust resistance, painting all the hardware especially in highly corrosive environments is very important) (Double Black Diamonds is a Skiing symbol for those who don't know)
Secure the Hardware wire onto the boxes with your Screws and Giant washers and do it so the screws go threw both the storage box and the truck bed in order to prevent someone from just walking up pulling the speakers out and walking off.



Covering #2
Because the Hardware wire doesn't look very good I threw in some plexiglass, you can get a sheet at homedepot or lowes for like 5 bucks, it is very important you take your time cutting the plexiglass down to size, if you rush it you could cut to much and then you would have to start all over. I cut it down to size with a glass cutter also at home depot for like 5 bucks. I made sure I cut it a tiny bit bigger then what would be required. At this point I filed it down to fit as close to exact as possible and used some clear silicone adhesive to seal it in, eventually I am going to paint it black so you cant see the speakers at all but wanted to give you a chance to see it clear and installed.




Thats my write up, comments are welcome, so are questions just let me know... Total cost for everything to do this came in right around 200, I bought most of the expensive stuff on EBay or Amazon to save me money.
The speakers I used were:

POLK AUDIO DB461P 4X6" 300 WATT 2-WAY CAR & MARINE AUDIO PLATE SPEAKER, I got them on Ebay for 62 dollars, Polk has them listed on there website as 130 dollars i think.

 

you could also tap the speaker wires from behind the radio to save yourself the trouble of taking both doors apart.

 

I like everything other than the grill cover.. What you could do is bend the cover into the hole and mount that way.

 

Shane if you read my post you would see why i chose not to route wires from behind the h/u I did like the idea though.
Aw9d I wanted to mount the cover on the inside and that was the original plan but the brackets I used kind of screwed it up. If someone wants to change that up I think that would be awesome and would love if they post how they did it better.

 

For a quick fix, bend mesh in and zip tie or thing wire it to the bolts that are used to hold the speaker into the cubby hole.

I have an idea but its hard to type out, I'll make one and send you the pic's.. Looking at speakers now.

 

that is an awesome idea Cole, that would be sweet, I imagine its possible but I can't even imagine how I would create that. Aw9d I will be watching

 

I totally want to do this! Has anyone else done this?

 

Have you thought about fibre-glassing the speaker into the cubby you'll get a better seal and it would look much cleaner. It's a great use for the previously useless cubby.
+1

 

Fiberglass is a brilliant idea, dont know why i didnt think of that i will work on that hopefully next monday and see how it works, add it to the post

 

Alright I threw on plexiglass today, It looks great compared to what the hardware wire... sound quality is a little lower considering the cubby's aren't actual boxes, but they do work, but if you have the speakers playing at a low volume it sounds more hollow, the louder you get the more solid the sound becomes, I have decided to keep the plexiglass for now it just looks way more professional. I will edit this DIY section tomorrow and include the plexiglass and hardware wire so everyone can see some different options and maybe come up with different ideas that are easy to do and perfect the design.
I have decided to keep the plexiglass for now it just looks way more professional

 

Why not just buy some covers for 6x9 speakers and screw those on over the cubbies for like 10 bucks

 

Make sure to take pictures!

 

Alright so i got the fiberglass pictures posted for you all, take a look, let me know what your think!

 

Looks 100x better

 

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