# Kickin it old school :) 1969 Buick Skylark Convertible Build



## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

Well, after all the excitement of working on a brand new Hyundai Genesis, it brings balance to my world to dive into an old school car -- a 1969 Buick Convertible.

Goals:

1. Achieve a nice level of SQ for a rather less than ideal vehicle interior
2. Obtain a high level of subbass that is clearly audible and felt even with the top down
3. Retain as much functionality and space as possible, especially in the trunk, as it is a frequent driver, intead of a weekend warrior so the trunk is meant to be used.
4. all done on a somewhat modest budget for a car of this type.

lets get started, first two shots of the car 



















I also redid his wiring and battery terminals under the hood, with two EFX DELTA D-clamp terminals, and upgraded his grounding throughout the underhood area:










For the headunit, the customer provided me with a JVC KD-X80BT single din unit. and i made an adapter to fit in place of his old shaft radio:










The car uses a JBL MS8 for signal processing, so the display and an extension cable for the tuning mic is located in the glovebox..also in the glovebox are the two USB input cables for the JVC HU:










a few quick build pics of the Headunit mounting. Usually in old cars, i dont like to cut up the dash, but in the buick, the oem mounting goes through a removable plate, which can be replaced later and the dash restored to factory condition. so here is the plate and also the adapter i made out of 1/2" MDF:










I then trimmed out the OEM plate so the headunit can fit in as well:










and then wrapped the adapter with 3M brushed aluminum vinyl wrap to blend in with the silver OEM panel:










and finally, the adapter is secured to the plate, and the din cage installed, this is now ready to go back into the car and the HU slid in:










One nice feature with this car is an OEM center channel location...but the old center channel speaker has clearly seen better days, the tinsel lead had lon torn off, and its just covered with 60 years of dirt and grime:










we through about cutting the plate and mounting 2 x 3.5" speakers, but we found a company that sells improved OEM fitment drivers for it. so we picked one up...its a perfect fit and uses the OEM bracket as before:



















and here it is mounted back into the car and wired up to the MS8:










The front stage consists of the new Morel Virtus 693 3 way component set. The customer wanted everything in the kicks, but also wanted to retain the functionality of the vents, and adapting to retain the functionality of the OEM high beam switch ont he floor and the parking brake pedal. So the kicks had to be molded around these areas, and still had room for all three drivers aimed at a good angle towards the opposite listener, and i feel the Morels really enjoy being a bit more on axis 

so here are the finished products, note on the driver side, where it curves around the vents, we will weld on a pole extension for hte high beam switch so it can still be operated with the foot, and the customer had chopped the parking brake lever to give more clerance, he will have a metal shop weld on a cross beam and pedal to space it out so he can still operate it as well.


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

some build pics of the kicks. First the initial floor mold was taken and when cured, removed from the car:










then it was trimmed to the right shape a big portion cut out of it to allow venting into the carpet, followed by a layer of second skin deamplifier pro:



















then came the baffle, which are designed to fit all three drivers on the same plane, and curves around the vents:










next came the baffle for the mids...these are not fully sealed units so they have to be isolated from the pressure of the midbass. so what i did was build a baffle that is sealed into a PVC cup:



















and then that was attached to the main baffle, along with another adapter plate which gives the whole thing a flush mounting apperance when done:










next a pair of speaker wires were run into the cups and the holes sealed, i also lined the inside of the cups with deamplifier pro to prevent resoanance:










the baffles were then aimed and attached to the floor mold:










mold cloth was then pulled, resin applied, allowed to cure and then reinfoced with a duraglass/resin mixture. then some light filler work smoothed out the entire shape:










the inside walls of the pods received a layer of modeling clay and sound proofing, to further prevent resonances:



















the pods were then wrapped with black carpet:










Here is one half of the Morel Virtus set, with a dome midrange and tweeter and a 6.5" midbass...



















and here are all the drivers installed into the kicks and ready to go into the car:




























moving to the back. the csutomer gave me a set of old school but BNIB A/D/S 4" component sets to be used as rears. But he also wanted a design that appeared as stock as possible, in other words, no round speakers or grilles visible. The car is going to undergo a full interior upholstery ugprade, so he asked me to leave the finished product in bare MDF, so it can be wrapped with matching material later. So here is waht i came up with...on each side, a trapezoid grille covers the two speakers, once the MDF is wrapped in white, and the grille mesh covered with white or black grille cloth, it will look very factory and not draw any attention:



















here is how they were built, first the A/D/S sets were installed into the factory panel, meansuring carefully to avoid the moving top mechanism:










then the top grille was made up, with a rabeted recess on the inside to attach grille mesh, and a curved lip at the top to give it a lil extra touch cosmetically, the grille mesh was then attached, held on by tiny globs of hot glue so it can easily be removed by the upholster later:



















The grille was then attached to the factory panel with four bolts and threaded inserts on the grilles. the back of the factory panel was also covered with deamplier pro:



















now, moving to the main attraction, the trunk. as stated, the goal here is to conserve as much usable space as possible...and as you know about old cars, their trunk is just all bare metal, with no trim or anything, so all that has to be built. everything in the trunk was built to conserve space...how far in the sidewalls are pushed, the shape of the back wall and the locations of the amps, are all completely dictated by that...

so here is the normal view, with all the grilles in place, as you can see, the entire trunk is furnished in grey trunk liner. becuase we pushed front wall back as far as possible and does not come to the opening edge of the runk, i built two simple stuctures that hide the metal plates that the trunk hinges attach to:


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

pop off the front and floor grilles and where is what you see. three Morel Primo 10" subs are firing backwards, and three Mosconi Gladen Audio amps are on the floor, with the MS8 in the middle. a XL150C4 sends 150 watts to the mid/tweet combo in each kick, and 150 watts to each rear component set, a RS150C2 powers the midbass drivers with 150 watts a piece, and a SPL 1800C1 sends a whopping 1800 watts or so to the three morel subs. 

Everything is trimmed in a dark red vinyl that matches the exterior of the car and all the gear is flush mounted:























































The customer also asked me to provide some type of lighting so he can see what is in the trunk in the dark. so if you look on the back wall, you will see two LED floodlights sunk into the panel. they are from Oznium.com and is hyper white in color...here is how the trunk lights up at night, again more for functionality than cosmetics, thehy are operated via a remote control fob attached to the key chain.



















the two covers on the side walls serve different purposes. the one on the left is a hidden storage compartment:










While a diehard battery (rebadged odessey i think) provided by the customer resides on the passenger side to provide extra juice. again, two EFX DELTA Dclamp terminals are used:



















so lets move onto the trunk build pics.

First the customer was kind enough to install the sound proofing in the trunk for me, i gave him some damplifier pro fo that job. the wiring bundles were then run into the trunk:










this is the main fundational board bolted to the floor of the trunk. it provides a solid and flat mounting surface for everything else:










then two extra platforms were bolted to the left and right sides, they will anchor the two compartments:



















next, the 2 cubic foot sealed enclsoure was constructed for the 3 subs...they have a sloping top and takes advantage of as much air space as possible. the front is covered in red vinyl, and inside stuffed with Focal Blackhole STUFF. 




























this box was then secured to the car. six threaded inserts were put into the foundational board which allows six bolts to secure the box, and six additional bolts are used to secure the sides to the floor:










here is the relatively new Morel Primo 10" subwoofer 



















Next, the driver side storage compartment is built, then wrapped in trunk liner and installed into the car...note the small hidden compartment under the main floor to hide valuables:


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

The passenger side compartment for the battery was done in a similar style, except the floor panel is a separate piece which allows me to bolt in the mounting plate of the battery hold down before having to install the rest of the structure:




























here is the diehard battery with the billet tie down test fitted:










and here is the aforementioned tiedown bottom plate bolted to the car through all the wood platforms:










and finally the battery itself securely mounted:










These are the two side trim panels before and after caperting:



















here is the back panel before and aftermarket, note LED flood lights mounted and wired up:





































here is the subwoofer trim panel before and after vinyl application:



















here are the pieces for the front wall outter panel before and after carpeting:




























The amp and procesor trim panel before and after vinyl:



















and the main floor panel before and after carpeting:



















and here are the grilles before and after carpeting, for some reason i forgot to take a pic of the subwoofer grille before carpeting...oops


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

Finally, shots of the wiring organization underneath. note the dual fuse holders on the passenger side. one is on the main cable traveling between batteries, and the other is for the system.





































So how does it sound?

well, as mentioned, i had my reservations becuase of the interior of this car, but i was really surprised.

I have to say that I am utterly blown away by the Virtus 693 3 way set...i heard them at CES in Casey Thorson's car and was mighty impressed, so i had high expectations, but i still still really amazed at how they performed. right out of the box ont he ms8 autotune, no adjustment of anything, they were warm, smooth, natural, with very nice impact and detail, the last two things were perhaps the most noted improvements over the older morel drivers. The car images okay, center is rock solid with the center channel, height is dash level, a lil rainbowing left and right, but overall tonality is excellent. 

I also had the same positve impression of hte primo subs...they proivded an outstanding amount of smooth, deep and fast subbass, blends with the music well, and most surprisingly, the car has truly nice subbass output even with the top down...

Overall, i cannot praise this new generation of morel products enough, expect to see more Virtus and Primo installs from me in the near future, along with the other redesigned Morel lines higher up in the food chain. 

anyway, overall, sounds quite nice, gets really loud espectially when you turn the logic 7 off on the ms8...not a strict SQ car, but its very pleasant to listen to all day long.

Now the customer just has to install the new alternator for the car as the 60 year old 55amp unit is not keeping up with the current demands of the system at all. but, thats happening in the next few days 

Cheers!

Bing


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## Darth SQ (Sep 17, 2010)

After our get together in June, I have been waiting for this thread with anticipation.
Great job again Bing!

Bret
PPI-ART COLLECTOR


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## pocket5s (Jan 6, 2012)

Very nice! I have a 72 skylark waiting to be built so this is some inspiration for sure  

I love to see these old machines get modern make overs.


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## jpeezy (Feb 5, 2012)

Diggin the old school skylark,my dad has a pristine 72 2dr skylark and I had a nice 72 4 dr skylark when I was 17,nice clean install as usual! I bet the morels all in one kick image quite well,good job.i see some heat gun action on the fuzzy stuff in the trunk(I do the same thing).looks nice and smooth.once again bing, it's your work no doubt!


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## strong*I*bumpin (Oct 3, 2005)

Thats pimpin' baby!..SuperFly would be proud to own this car.


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## trojan fan (Nov 4, 2007)

How's that center channel speaker holding up?


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## Bluenote (Aug 29, 2008)

This is nice Bing...I see some Simplicity kickpanels in my future


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## m0sdef (Nov 16, 2010)

Awesome build Bing! Love how everything just integrates so well.


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## [email protected] (May 18, 2012)

Great job as always, Bing!


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## brandon. (Jul 11, 2012)

Wow... Just wow. Every one of your build threads continue to blow me away! I wish I had 1/16 of your talent.


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## hyundave (Jun 7, 2012)

Absolutely incredible build. So much inspiration.


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## GlasSman (Nov 14, 2006)

Nice work as usual.

How much MDF went into that trunk?

I'm thinking with all that gear theres well over 100 LBS added to the trunk.

How are those Gladen amps? I like the choices in power output....they may very well be in my next build.


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

I have no doubt over 100 lbs went in...considering the battery itself is like 40 some lbs 

These amps r very solid and powerful midline units 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I717 using Tapatalk 2


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## chevbowtie22 (Nov 23, 2008)

Nice job Bing. I love the look of the trunk just like every one of your installs. I hope I can even remotely make the false floor in my car look anywhere close to one of your installs. I'm just not a huge fan of the kicks in this car. I'm sure the Morels sound great but design of the kicks just doesn't do it for me.


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

chevbowtie22 said:


> Nice job Bing. I love the look of the trunk just like every one of your installs. I hope I can even remotely make the false floor in my car look anywhere close to one of your installs. I'm just not a huge fan of the kicks in this car. I'm sure the Morels sound great but design of the kicks just doesn't do it for me.


no worries, i played around with all sorts of angles and aiming, and i couldnt quite find a good way to fit all three drivesr in the kicks ON AXIS with the opposite listener while clearing the way for the vents and high beam switch. 

b


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## GlasSman (Nov 14, 2006)

simplicityinsound said:


> I have no doubt over 100 lbs went in...considering the battery itself is like 40 some lbs
> 
> These amps r very solid and powerful midline units


My Dad had a green 1970 Skylark with a 350 that I always wanted to fix up.....he had it towed away for $50 when the head gasket went on it back in 1985......I literally cried as they drove it away. And that was when my possible future as an auto mechanic ended.

Have you popped any of those Gladen or Audio System M Series open?

The only shots I've found are the very small partial pics on the Audio System websites.

I... need.... gut....shots.


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## simplicityinsound (Feb 2, 2007)

hahaha i dont rip anything open...i dont really care what the insides look like if it performs good and remains reliable


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## InjunV18 (Jun 16, 2008)

Looks great Bing. I am working on a friend's 1969 convertible Pontiac Firebird and see a lot of similarities across the GM line. I also am going through the process of adding panels and trim to the entire trunk area. I like the tail light cover you made better than mine, I may have to change it. We have the aftermarket head unit in that area though, so we had a few different requirements. Thanks for another fantastic build!


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## crzystng (May 2, 2008)

Always love your work. Nice, clean, simple finished looks, while still rather complicated under the hood.


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