DIY: Basic Speaker Upgrade- 2nd Gen Access Cab

Having read this and finding it very helpful for my install, I thought I'd finally register to thank Maverick for his excellent tutorial!

I referred to this often to do my upgrade (still in progress) and it was a life saver. My own upgrade is going to be a little more intense,. but i have to say that it was the walk through and photos here that gave me the guts to start ripping ny Tacoma apart!

To date:
I have replaced the factory speakers in the front doors with Infinity components (6.5" )
I did replace the factory tweeter with the pivoting infinity tweeter which remains behind the stock grill in the door. (huge improvement in high frequency response and detail!)

Still in progress:
Replace rear speakers with similar Infinity 5.5" components.
Replace head unit with "old" aftermarket Yamaha with preamp inputs.
Add three way electronic crossover and three amps.
Add one pair of 10" Subwoofers in custom boxes to sit on rear jumper seats

Thanks again, and I'll keep you posted on my progress.

 

CyberDyneSystems, was it hard to replace thetweeter?

 

There was some extra work...

1. Wiring.
I wanted to continue to use the stock wiring,.. I am going to need to take pics to illustrate fully, don't have any now, but in essence the stock wires go to the tweeter where the crossover is embedded, then go down to the door mounted woofer... this means that if you install an external crossover for a set of components like I did,. we need to use an adapter to plug the stock plug into the new crossover,. (came with the speakers from Crutchfeild, ) but then we need to do some custom wiring from there to the woofer and tweeter.

FYI, the stock front "crossover" only filters low frequencies from getting to the tweeters.. there is no "crossover" for the front door woofers, they get the whole shebang.. they just can't reproduce high frequencies even if they are being fed to them.
Part of my wiring mod, was to merely cut the wire going from the tweeter4 plug AFTER the split that returns the full range sound to the woofer below.. (again, hard to explain without pics.. )



2. Mounting:
Although the Crutchfeild kit included some ( low quality ) mounts for the door mounted 6.5" woofers,. (made by Scosche) they did not have any hardware fro the tweeter.
The stcok tweeter has it's mount as part of the tweetwere,. it can't really be seperated.

I simply used some 1/4" MDF to make a custom mount.. the tweeters movements are so tiny that there is no concern about vibration with a lightweight mount material in this case.
The Infinity reference tweeters also have a ball pivot, so within my home moad mount i was able to aim the tweeters directly at the drivers seat.

I for one hate the mid bass heavy speakers with low muffeled high end we hear so often,. so these tweetwers are a huge advantage.

Once I get further along with the electronics and the rear speaker install,. I'll do my best to actually take photos. I'll actually need to cut holes in the rear door plastic interior trim to mount the rear tweeters...

 

Please do post as I am following, thanks, Chris

 

2 years later buttt...nice write up mav!

 

I just wanted to apologize for the delay,.
...and warn that it may be longer.

Work and Health have set my little project back considerably.

As soon as I have the chance to re-open this project,. I will have to go into the front doors again anyway, so I will take pics of the mounts for the tweeters,. and I will this time document photographically as I do the work for the rear access door speakers, the Bass cabinets, and the Amplifier/signal processing install.

Maverick, if you read this, please let me know if this documentation should go in it's own thread, or if it's beneficial to keep the " Audio How To " posts in this thread.

Indeed nice write up!

 

You can keep it in this thread or open up another just coving your work. It's up to you. I think keeping it all together is good, so that future members who are looking to do this only have to look one place, but if you wish to start your own thread to make it easier to follow your modifications then feel free to do it that way, and just link the new thread here.

However you want to proceed is fine, and I welcome your additions to my work.

Regards,

Adam

 

you have a link to those tweeters handy?

 

Great detailed DIY.

Anyone know if the rears are the same on the 2010s? I've got the base model system and there's no grilles in the back doors, but it doesn't make much sense that the metal would be different (i.e. lacking the mounting pockets for a pair of conicals).

I'm hoping to get 4 good quality speakers and a modest power-amp in at some point, but don't feel much need to replace the stock HU if I don't have to (prefer not to have to deal with a dash replacement and maybe lose the aux input/wheel controls if it can be avoided)

 

I put a JVC KW-XG 700 Head Unit in my 2009 Tacoma & it has plenty of power to push my Pioneer speakers without an amp. It's 20 watts RMS X 4 (50 watt X 4 peak). It was easy to install with the mounting kit I got from Mobile One, & the dash still looks factory. They have adapter kits so you can use your wheel mounted controls.

 

Is that unit compatible with the stock wheel controls and aux jack?

 

You would need a PAC-SWI-JACK

 

I googled the model and although the USB/thumb drive compatability seems interesting (since 8GB thumbs are so cheap these days), the HU is a little more flashy than I'm looking to go.

I'm street parking my Taco in a neighborhood that's close enough to some rough parts of L.A. that I'd rather not have to worry about anything that could look tempting from outside (the day I went to get the truck, I noticed two piles of former windows on the street within a block of my building).

 

Man alive, I haven't even been a member a week and I've found 6 projects I must do! I'm hoping the XM radio install for the 06' 4x4 Access is as clean as your 09' experience. Is the new labeling on the faceplate press-on labels or do you get a new faceplate w/ the XM kit?

Flugelhornjazz
New England, formerly from Utah (outdoor country)

 

Has/Does anyone taken off/know how to take off the base model door panel? My windows are manual. I don't see that one bolt in between the door arm rest. I just have the one behind the door handle and the 2 retaining pins. I looked at the bottom, I am thinking it's like my old Dakota, at the bottom there are pegs that insert into the door and then pins and what you see outside.

 

Thanks for the right-up, this thread definitely helped me figure out the rear access door panel. Made things fly.

 

Okay, I've done a search through this forum and have been unable to locate the answer, not did Google help me out this time so I guess I must post a qustion...

I purchased an XR4Pro speaker level to line level adapter. It's of course 4 channels. The input wires are coded in pairs, the main color is solid and the second wire has a black stripe running down it. I'm trying to figure two things out here.

1. Which wire is +, the solid or the one with the stripe?
2. Which color is which channel (RF, LF, RR, LR)?

Here are the colors: Gray, White, Violet, and Green. Remember these are in pairs, one is solid and the other has a black stripe.

The manual (if you can call it that) says the colors are EIA Standard. I tried to locate that wonderful standard but it elludes me.

I appreciate the help.

-Joe

 

1. Tends to be that the non-stripe is +, but it's possible things can sound better using reverse polarity. It's rare, but also possible the factory could wire things backwards from their standard as well. Bottom line, it won't blow anything up by having things wired the wrong way, it just may sound weird until you get it all right.
2. Try a temporary connection. Fade and balance everything to one corner and identify which wires make sound. Repeat.

 

i have a 2010 access cab, i dont think i have rear speakers... there isnt a speaker grill on the back doors. whats up with that? does it have rear speakers and just no opening? anyone?

 

Rear speakers in the 2010 access cab are installed in the roof under the headliner, and they're pretty crappy even by the standards of factory car stereo speakers in non "premium" audio packages. My guess is that they're common to the reg cabs that way, which would make them a little cheaper to build.

I got curious about why the HU had a "fade" setting when there didn't appear to be rear speakers, but if you crank the fader to R-7, you'll be able to locate the sound.