# Wrapping stock speaker grills



## dogstar (Jan 31, 2007)

I finally found the time for a project I've had in my head for a while, wrapping my car's speaker grills with grill cloth.

Subject: 2006 Hyundai Sonata

Materials used:
Hot-Glue gun and glue sticks
Medium Grey speaker cloth -www.Partsexpress.com
Cordless drill and 3/8" drill bit
Knife - Boker ceramic, but use whatever you've got 

After finding a source for the cloth and paying too much, then working up the guts to start drilling my car (My door panels are $330 Cdn, EACH. If you do this BE CAREFUL), I finally got to it tonight, and finished it in less than 3 hours.

Pics should be up tomorrow, probably.

-Remove door panel... Since this varies so much on all the different cars, I'm not going in-depth here.
-Unplug all the wires and switches, and take the door panel to your work bench. 
-I used cardboard as a clean, smooth and disposable work surface, replacing it everytime I started another grill. Whatever you do, keep your work area tidy because grey grill cloth will look terrible with stains.
-Using a 3/8" drill bit, drill out the mushroom shaped plugs holding the grill in. 
-You may need to cut away the remains of the mushrooms, but once you are done, the grill will pop out with gentle pressure. 
-I traced on the cloth around the grills with chalk, giving about an inch of material to work with.
-The cloth was then cut out with shears and laid down nice and smooth.
-Line the grill up along a straight edge and fold the material up to check your fit.
-Place a dab of hot glue down, and fold the cloth against it.
-Work your way around, checking to be sure that you can pull it taut to remove the wrinkles.

The first grill has one small puff where i didnt get it quite tight enough, and it took me nearly 40 minutes, but the other three took less than an hour combined once I got the hang of it.

One small issue with this mod is that the speaker grill may not pop into the hole quite as well, due to the increased thickness of the cloth around the perimeter.
I am going to wait a few days to see how noticable it is in the daylight, and how much it annoys me.

Feel free to ask any questions, but if it is related to how something looks when in progress, give me a day or two to get the pics up.


----------



## Hillbilly SQ (Jan 26, 2007)

i covered mine a couple months ago. thanks to having a truck that seems to be made for car audio mine popped off easily. i used a needle and thread instead of hot glue. looks great and much cleaner than they were before.


----------



## Sean Morrison (May 27, 2007)

I wonder if adding grill cloth would work sort of as an aperiodic membrane. If its fitted such that the speaker must "breathe" through it then I think it could have a small effect on the Q of the system. Might be a good thing though.


----------



## Hillbilly SQ (Jan 26, 2007)

Wrapping the back of the driver with cloth will act as an aperiodic membrane and it really works with some drivers.


----------

