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So we have been working upon my daughters new to us 1992 RS and over the weekend the dash pad was removed to change out the speakers.
We found these simply resting in the giant carved holes he had left after the butchery was finished.
Random Chrysler speakers found in the dash of our Camaro.
Not even a screw or anything holding back the power of these monsters. Just tossed in the hole and the dash pad placed over them.
Vent butchery done by the PO of the car to fit his ghetto upgradezzz...
PO butchery as seen from the inside. Not even tape over the vent on this side to keep the air moving to the dash vent outlet.
I now know that I don't have to worry about cutting into the car to fit better speakers as that has been done.
Now I just have to figure out what I want to put in place and how to screw it down.
What started us looking into what the PO had done to the stereo was when I went to switch out the 6x9's and found his speaker wiring. I saw these fine wires and that stopped all forward movement with any stereo stuff. After a full investigation, we are starting from scratch.
A full set of Chrysler speakers were found in the Camaro. I have a full set of Pioneer speakers to replace them with, eventually.
Fried white wire pinched in the body work. Not a fuse in the line anywhere.
That is one way to lower the ohm's the amp sees from the subs. The red crimp connectors are way to small for even one of the wires let alone 3 of them together. I didn't open them up to see what wizardry was going on in the black tape...
More garbage wiring. 8 gauge speaker wire split to become power and ground wires for the amp that was screwed to the bottom of the heater box in the passenger foot well.
that is pretty bad-looks like a whiz-disc was used....I built a shop radio using those same chrysler round speakers-powered with a Delco radio from a 1984 Oldsmobile Firenza-toughest shop radio ever -still going strong
This looks like a "I know a guy that can install a completed stereo system for like $100... he only takes cash, give him a couple of nights to get the parts"
How's the rest of the car? I can't imagine this level of butchery was contained to only the stereo, but for your sake I hope it was.
PO butchery as seen from the inside. Not even tape over the vent on this side to keep the air moving to the dash vent outlet.
Good grief.........
That's a new level of ham-handed butchery rarely seen on this site. Can't even imagine the "thought process" that went into such a thing.
And as mentioned above, you'd do well the check out the rest of the car---especially the brakes and steering---very carefully; the rocket scientist who sliced and diced the dash may have applied his wizardry elsewhere. smh......
you might want to get a new dash shell. all of the PS bracketry that holds the dash to the firewall is missing. or maybe you can fabricate something to add bracketry back in somehow.
also nothing is holding the top of the computer stationery. that white looking pin goes into a hole in the dash housing holding it in place. you don't want your ECU flopping around behind the dash.
i'd imagine leaving the dash like it is would add to the squeaks and rattles these cars are already known for.
That's a new level of ham-handed butchery rarely seen on this site. Can't even imagine the "thought process" that went into such a thing.
And as mentioned above, you'd do well the check out the rest of the car---especially the brakes and steering---very carefully; the rocket scientist who sliced and diced the dash may have applied his wizardry elsewhere. smh......
GL straightening that mess out.
We have had the car for a month and a half now.
It has been getting lots of attention on the weekends as you put it and I like to call it "ham fisted".
I have found the PO on Instagram and yup, he was the butcher.
I have only begun to chronicle our time with this car on this forum.
I have at this time 8 pages on another forum that has a running timeline of the things we have found and are fixing...
you might want to get a new dash shell. all of the PS bracketry that holds the dash to the firewall is missing. or maybe you can fabricate something to add bracketry back in somehow.
also nothing is holding the top of the computer stationery. that white looking pin goes into a hole in the dash housing holding it in place. you don't want your ECU flopping around behind the dash.
i'd imagine leaving the dash like it is would add to the squeaks and rattles these cars are already known for.
There is a 1992 in the Pick N Pull near by that I may just go and have a look at again to see about taking the dash shell out of.
Hopefully they have not crushed it yet...
I spent several hours under the hood last weekend building all new battery cables and running a new amp wire to the rear of the car.
The battery terminals were full of twisted up and porcupine looking wires sticking out everywhere.
I have been making my own cables for 20 or so years now and this car was going to get a set too.
A BMW gave up its 0 gauge battery wire for this project.
I make the lugs out of copper tubing and crimp them with a hydraulic lug crimper.
Finish off with a proper hole and some edge trimming and then apply heat shrink.
Repeat as many time as it takes to get them all finished up.
I also converted it to side posts and put in my preferred heavy duty battery clamps.
PO had simply drilled a hole in the firewall and fed the unfused 8 gauge power wire through it.
I reused that hole and drilled it larger for the bulkhead connector to pass through and the wire passes through that.
Got them all in place and then tightened the connector down for a solid and waterproof fitting.
You can see the 4 gauge wire to the fuse and then into the cabin here.
I have also secured the wire to the car in several places to stop it from flopping around...
In this photo, you can see the new battery cables all ran to their new homes.
The first several inches of the negative cable are wrapped in tape to signify what it is.
I will cover the rest eventually in wire loom to stop the OCD in my head when I look in there.
Lucky for us, there is a 1992 Camaro in the junkyard not far from here.
We went a couple weeks ago and pulled a ton of stuff off of it and on Saturday we pulled the whole dash shell out of it as well.
This will be a fun project for the coming weekend....
But it will get rid of a bunch of the bad juju the car had and restore the natural balance.
I see there's no wiring harness on that housing,.......
In my experience ( My ) it's a lot better to load the dash wiring harness onto the replacement housing BEFORE installing the housing back on the firewall. I know most folks do it that way, but figured now was a good time for a 'heads-up' before you start the project. Good Luck this weekend !
One of the wonderful things about the junkyard is that we get to learn how it all comes apart in a real world condition.
Plus we get to take our car apart as well for a good refresher, just can't use the wire cutters this time...
We tried to get the wiring out and then found that removing the air ducts makes the wiring much simpler to deal with.
Those will be removed and reinstalled after the wiring.
I will be taking photos as we move through the dash refurb for sure.
This is about where we were when the dash refurbish began.
All of the interior is out of the car at this point for a good deep clean and then rewiring the stereo.
After the new wires were run in the car we put the front carpet back in.
My son said there were maybe 5 fasteners holding the dash in the car.
At least it was a simple removal I guess...
This is where we left off, no dash.
Just a mess of stuff and things, but they all did get some cleaner and a wipe down.
So we are starting with a clean slate going forward.
Also notice the ability to see the heater core.
Yeah.
I sent a kid to the junkyard to pull that cover from the white 92 that has already given us so much.
I doubt there's any harm done or upcoming,............... If you've got quick / easy access to the car, you might want to lift that column back into place and just temp install 1 of the 13mm nuts that hold it up. Any time you have to drop the column going-forward you can just remove that nut in about 2 seconds. Right now the firewall &/or the column's body mount/plate is flexing like crazy because the column is not supported and just kinda' hanging.
Been awhile since I've had a dash that far apart; looks as fun as ever !
We will be out there again later this evening to continue working on it.
We have to fix the high beam switch and then will work to get the new dash in to keep the stress on the mount as short as possible.
As of last night, the dash is nearly back together.
Just never mind the mess on the floor where the console goes....
Now we have the proper sized holes for speakers and all the mounting spots for the dash.
But in trying to clean things up, the VATS resistors were hanging out in the wind from a PO.
Tired to heat shrink them and one of the leads broke off.
Now waiting on a resistor kit from Amazon to get here tomorrow so we can fix the issue...
I didn't want the back of the speaker open so I also started working on making a backing to close it off to help prevent sound cancellation.
I started with a pair of coffee filters to get the shape I wanted, those with some tape to hold the shape got me started....
Set the speaker in to check after adding some more tape...
I was satisfied with the shape and size of the "shell".
I then added more tape to the shell and then flipped it over and added HVAC mastic butyl tape for structure.
After some fitting and refitting, I have a nice fit to the speaker and the dash.
I have also trimmed off all the extra materials that are not needed.
It looks like a baked potato dish.
The mastic is hard to get the screws through, so I ended up cutting little notches out where the mount screws ended up.
When mounted in the dash it fits well and there is room enough for the speaker, wires, and speaker cup.
New dashboard is in and complete!
Just have to get some double sided tape so that we can reaffix the 25th Anniversary tag on the passenger side.
Speakers both have backing on them now with wiring and are fully screwed into place.
I forgot to take a totally complete photo of the project.
But right after this was complete we ran the car to the DEQ where it passed the emissions test and then to the DMV where I transferred the title to make it ours.
Picked the new plates for it out and now we are ready to go.
How it has been sitting in the driveway for the last two months on the six ton jackstands....
Now it sits so much lower and moves on its own again....
Good job fixing all that mess.
looks like you got quite a nice fleet of vehicles.
Thanks!
Yes we do, we like them old here at the house with our newest and safe one from 1995.
My son has his daily driver 1949 Chevy 3100 truck as well as the aqua '55 Bel Air.
My '54 Bel Air is the next project up for work and the yellow truck is my 1979 Silverado with its big block for motivation.
There are also a pair of air cooled VW's in the mix too.
So many things to work on, but it is all for fun.
Most of the time....
I got to have some time out in the driveway this weekend and I finished up the radio and console install to complete this dash upgrade.
I had to run a new yellow switched power wire from the fuse box as the PO had fried the wire coming straight out of the fuse panel.
I clipped it off and installed a new wire from one of the auxiliary power taps provided from the factory.
Everything has just been set in place for now as I have 3 more holes to drill to mount the **** for the Blaupunkt bass reprocessor that will be mounted inside the console.
Here the dash is now whole and looking much better.
I need to get some double sided tape to reinstall the dash badge.
The covers for the underside need to be installed, but overall it has had that part of the PO bubblegummery erased.
There are plenty of other things to be addressed as I see there are some cut and or unplugged things under the dash that will be dealt with in the future...
) it's a lot better to load the dash wiring harness onto the replacement housing BEFORE installing the housing back on the firewall. I know most folks do it that way, but figured now was a good time for a 'heads-up' before you start the project. Good Luck this weekend !
