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ODJ's 1988 VW Jetta

27K views 119 replies 23 participants last post by  odj23 
#1 ·
Alright, It's been a few years since I've done an install, so I'm chomping at the bit to get back into the game.

I'm using a bunch of stuff I've got sitting around at the moment, plus a head unit I still have to pick up. Most of it's mid-grade, but so is the car, and so is my budget :laugh:

Here's my victim. 1988 VW Jetta. Mostly stock, nice and clean. Good second car to have around (and augment my "fleet" of two door hatchbacks).









Here's the proposed layout:



I've got a couple of quarts(?) of Second Skin Spectrum, about half a roll of RaamMat BXT, some Ensolite, and a few odd patches of Dynamat Extreme, tons of wire and terminals/blocks, lots of spare MDF, and a wee bit of free time.

I plan to fire the sub through the opening between the rear seats, which looks like zis:



Here's another chap's install. Mine will be similar, most likely.





The amps will mount to the space to either side of the sub enclosure. Tweets in the "sail panels", woofers in the stock location.

My plan of attack is as follows:

1. Pull interior, clean it, let it dry.
2. Deaden doors, floors, firewall, trunk
3. modify door enclosures, mount woofer & tweeter
4. build & install sub box
5. run all wiring
6. put interior back in
7. enjoy!

Anywho, this is probably going to take a while. Most of my impetus in creating this thread is to remind me that I have to finish stuff. Plus I like documentation, for some odd reason.

Wish me luck! :drunk:
 
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#71 ·
Next on the agenda was to work on the door cards. This was what I was envisioning...



But the Zaph 5.25's need .25cu ft worth of air space, which pretty much negated the cubby jammy if I didn't want the speaks to stick out a good 8" from the door.

Here's the mediocre Trohpy door card I'm staring with.



All the leather (?) is pulling up



So, I removed it



Laid down numerous layers of blue tape, and waxed it with Collonite.



Took it outisde and laid some fiberglass



And blammo, I've got some door pocket molds.

 
#74 ·
Today, I drew a line with a marker.



Actually, two lines.



Got busy with a dremel.



Stuck some hurricane nuts in some hardboard, drilled some holes, and mounted the pods on a board.



Laid quite a lot of fiberglass. (Hotter mix this time... perfect actually... yesterday's piece took three good hours to dry.



While those were drying, I set the ignition timing. Response is better and it doesn't seem to want to backfire out of the intake, but it took a little bit of effort to get it started after it was warmed up. I'll deal with that later.

I also found a better fuse to use for the gauges.

Decided that since the pods are in progress that I no longer need to worry about sealing the doors, so I applied a little Raammat, and made myself a new vapor barrier. It came out OK.



Pods dried, and trimmed. They both bow in a little in the middle... not sure what that's about but it'll do.



More hurricane nuts. These damn things are useful.



Got to work on the sail panels, decided to try out the CA/grill cloth method.

Start with a sail panel, a tweeter, and some PVC



Figure out your depth

 
#75 ·
Cut the PVC (holy hell does that stuff smell bad.



Handy face protector is handy. Thanks Bernie!



The tweet secures using an M4 screw, and I drilled additional holes for the leads.



Cut out some grill cloth, sandwich it in the PVc with the tweeter.



Just secure the grill cloth around back with some tape



Lots of tape.



First try. Painters tape around the tweeter was a BAD idea. I had to use a scalpel, a razor blade, and a couple different flatheads to get the tweeter back out. Some flaws and an overly shiny part on the side.

NOTE: Use the accelerant for the CA glue very cautiously! I did a test piece first and had it smoldering. Plus the fumes are horrid.

NOTE #2: Be careful with CA glue in general. I managed to not get some parts with the accelerant and they were still wet when I started taking things apart. As a result, I am typing with 3.5 out of 10 fingers encapsulated in glue. Plus I somehow glued my shirt to my chest hair. That kinda sucked to fix.



I sanded the edge around the tweet and used a sharpie to re-black it. I have extra sail panels, lots of grill cloth, and more PVC, so I can always make another one later. Now that I know the basics I can futz around with it a bit.





 
#76 ·
I was still standing so I decided to get a start on the second sail panel.

I wrapped the tweet in saran wrap this time, MUCH better idea.



One of my pieces of tape came loose as it was drying so I went to the rescue with my fingers. Of course, I managed to glue my gloves (yes, this time I was smart enough to wear gloves) to the piece... and couldn't get loose without mangling it. I had to get my fiancee to help me get out of the gloves... LOL.



While that was drying, I made up a board to mount my crossovers on. It'll hang from the parcel shelf in the rear, between the rear speakers, and over the amp/sub box.



And finally, a pic of the two tweeter pods next to each other.



I'm off to have a beer and relax for a bit. Dunno if I'll be able to finish tomorrow since it's supposed to rain most of the day. Plus I have errands and such that I've been putting off all week.
 
#77 ·
So doing the tweeter housings without actually fitting them in the car could be a bad idea, as they aim downwards a bit. I'll have to see how they sound.



I finished the crossover board today.



Got to work on the door pods...

Hot glued in some dowels to support the speaker rings





Stretched some awesome fabric



Soaked the fleece in resin, and trimmed around the edge where it sits on the door card



I had some old bondo in the shed, so I made a bondo milkshake to coat the inside and fill any leaks. (this one was a bit lumpy) I don't know how I'm going to finish these just yet. I'm not 100% happy with how they came out.



I got the rest of the FAW-VW seals installed. The rear driver's side fit is a little funky (the rear doors are a mild PITA, btw), so I might redo it later.



Cleaned up the inner door skins and applied Raammat, then made a vapor barrier for the passenger front door.

 
#82 ·
Lots of stuff's happened the last few weeks, but unfortunately not much of it with the car.

I started a new job, lived through a (minor) earthquake and a (fairly major) hurricane, had to clean water out of my basement... all of this while limping around after dropping a ~250lb TV on my foot:



Before the storm last week I managed to trim the fiberglass'd cloth away from the opening and take it back to round. Speaker still fits in there perfectly. Hole at the bottom is where the speaker wire runs through the door card.



I got a little bit of work in today after cleaning up all of the tree schmutz out of the yard.

Some RaamMat on the door and made a new vapor barrier



Mounted up the door card to make sure it fit over the new vapor barrier. I think I'll still have room for some ensolite on the back of the door card. Yay!



Finished all the wiring in the inside of the car.

RCA's and right side speaker wires on the right.



Power, switched 12v, and left side speaker wires on the left.



I ran out of the 3m strip calk I was using to adhere the vapor barriers to the door, so I gotta pick up more of that ish before doing the last door.

Sh*ts coming together finally!
 
#86 ·
Got the carpet underlay stuff in today. I used some Harbor Freight anti-fatige mat - it's closed cell and cheap - but it's a bit to thick so the carpet's sitting a little funky. I'll deal.





I had guests for a bit so I had stuff stashed all over the house. the front carpet's been hanging in the corner of my basement along with the trunk carpet, over my sump pump.



Not perfect by any means, but the steam cleaner did a pretty damn good job.



I got all four door seals in today. Three of them took about 5-10 mins each, but one was a f*ckin PITA and took me more than 40 mins. It just would NOT go on. I had to run a small flathead through the seal to open it up a bit, and even then it was a whore to install. My hands are so frickin' sore.

Here's how she sits.



I really wanted to get the last of the vapor barriers done, but I couldn't find any of the strip caulk for sale around my house. Guess I gotta order that shiz online :-/
 
#88 ·
Alrighty, so I have had a bit of time over the weekend and this evening to get some work done.

I pulled the pods back out, and sanded them with the DA



Added a layer of the 45deg mat



While that was drying I lopped off the center seat belt stuff. not going to need that.



Sanded down the pods 'til they were about 85%ish.



Picked up a trunk monkey from the store. He was quite helpful installing the rear fill and crossovers.



(he's going to hate me for that one)

Oh yeah - my pimp center console is in, and it looks like the drink holder should clear the shifter.



I picked up a mesh screen from parts express and cut it out to fit in the open space between the back of the seat and the sub.



Wrapped up the pods with some carpet





Here's how they'll look in the door card

 
#89 ·
Square of ensolite behind the woofer. Dunno if this actually does anything, but I have a bunch sitting around.



Woofer in. Yes, my workshop has become a huge mess again. Looks much worse when I take pics with the decent camera.



Finished pods. The white specs are just dust.

 
#90 ·
Interior is mostly in, trunk's still a mess, but I drove it today :D

To my surprise, everything works! Minor stuff to take care of, but it's good to drive at this point.

I'm frickin' tired, so here's a pic dump:













First drive in 6 months :) Took the poocheroni to the gas station.



 
#92 ·
So, right now I've got just the amp installed - haven't put the EQ in yet - and the rear fill isn't hooked up.

I'm crossing between the front components and sub @ 80hz -100 was Zaph's suggestion, but it sounds pretty good at 80 - only gets muddy at higher volumes than I intend on running.

The tweets are a bit overpowering.. I'm going to give them a bit to break in, but if that doesn't improve I'm going to look at different mounting locations. As of right now I've got them padded down a little bit in the head unit's eq.

All in all it sounds pretty good! I hope to get things dialed in a bit more in the near future.
 
#96 ·
Umm... nah I don't know if I'd say it was particularly hard to make. It was just a lot of thinking and planning and staring at stuff and daydreaming, and then some measuring and cutting. It's a lot easier to measure & install with two people tho.
 
#97 ·
This weekend I got the rear deck all sorted, got the trunk carpet installed, and... washed her! Claybar on the upper part of the car (paint was ROUGH to the touch), then waxed with some Collonite. I love that stuff... it lasts forever. The car looks so much better now. Here's some decent pics.

Oh yeah, I took the grill spoiler off to see what it would look like.











I'll clean up the wires when I put the EQ in there :p



Oh, and my coffee mug fits ever so perfectly in the cupholder! Mwuahahahahaa! No more pinching drinks between the seat bottoms and the parking brake handle :laugh:

 
#98 ·
My trim clips came in last night, and I got the front driver's door trim back in place. I might have to clean the rear bumper up a little bit before I leave for H2O this weekend, too.

And... a couple of things that are on my list to redo...

1. "sail panel" tweeter housings. a. I don't like how they sound... i think I need to either move them forward to the a pillars or aim them up and forwardish (I'll detach them and play around with different locations this time), and b. I don't like the way they look. next build will be a fiberglass/filler/paint kinda deal so no more flimsyish grill cloth/CA glue nonsense. It was worth the experiment.

2. Move the amp & find a new ground. The board that supports the sub box creaks a little bit when you get the car twisting (uneven ground, etc). I'm going to move the amp to reduce the amount of weight that's on the board, then pull the board down and ensolite the front fully. I think it's the areas that are wood against metal that are making the noise. I also don't like how the amp looks sitting there, and I'm not sure that the ground I got against the seat belt bolt is the best. It seems that the amp isn't making peak power. Either that or I'm just craving a sh*t ton of headroom. I <3 headroom.

When I do those two I'll clean up the wiring in the trunk and wrap it in techflex like the engine bay shiz. I'll also hide the crossover board wiring some. Maybe just cover it in grill cloth, since I've got a sh*t ton of that. Dunno yet.

I gotta focus on brakes and suspension next. The car stops and turns like arsehole. Coilovers are in my future... probably the ST joints unless I can find a good deal on some ultralows or KWs. I've already got a (mostly) full brake setup.
 
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