I am new to this site. I was thinking about replacing my front door speakers on my 1992 940 GL. I bought a couple Bose speakers off Ebay that seem like they should fit, but i've never done this before and dont know anything about speakers. Is there a specific type of speaker i need for the front doors, or will any speaker work as long as it fits? here is the speaker i bought on this link....
BOSE 4 1/2" OEM AUTOMOTIVE SPEAKERS 1 PAIR AC DELCO | eBay

Can anyone help me out?

 

Hey bluesdude

In the same situation myself. If my 1994 is any indicator the 4.5 inch speakers are too small. (Unless you have an adapter). The shape looks right however because the top of my speakers have been shortened to allow the cover to fit.. although you probably know all this.

May I ask how you are progressing to date?

 

see my posts in this thread
https://volvoforums.com/forum/volvo-...o-940-a-64971/

5.25" speakers fit in the holes, but the screw holes won't line up, you really need an adapter plate like I linked to go with them

6" speakers also fit in the holes, but you need to trim the flange of the speaker slightly so the volvo OEM cover fits back on.

I put JL Audio C2-600 component 6" speakers in the front, with the woofers in the doors, and the tweeters in the factory dashboard speakers, which I hacked (removed the old cone, removed hte magnet, and glued the tweeters onto the old speaker's 'basket'), and I put the component crossovers under the dash on the drivers side.

I put JL Audio C2-525X coaxial 5.25" in the rear doors, using the adapters I linked in that other thread. this is all hooked up to an inexpensive new Alpine 50x4 CD deck in my dash, and sounds fantastic, so good, I've not bothered to install the small subwoofer I had in my previous 850 wagon.

4-1/2" speakers will have rather thin bass, and if you try and boost the bass at any sort of higher volume, will distort heavily.

 

I was able to use 5.25" speakers but like Pierce said, they don't line up. I also found that the OEM speaker covers didn't fit either.

I mounted mine with new holes and the included clips that came with the speakers. I used the included speaker covers. I wasn't sure how well they were mounted in the doors until I had to pull them out after the car was totaled. They were in there much better than I thought! They certainly were not going to fall out. Before removing them they sounded great and didn't make any extra noise when the volume was turned up. Other than the original covers not working, they were a great fit.

 

Thanks sb. I have just measured my old speakers. Very close to 6 inches but the internet sources say 5.25". Wonder if I measured wrong. I am looking at the least invasive method possible and like the sound of your new holes old clip approach. I would however like to retain the original speaker covers. I note some speakers have flattened off tops although if push came to shove I am not beyond a bit of butchery.

It is very interesting to see how helpful it is knowing what others have done from the viewpoint of pinpointing how it aligns with one's own philosophy. Many thanks again.

 

see my install of 6" here, https://volvoforums.com/forum/volvo-...o-940-a-64971/

6" speakers fit in the front door holes but the flange will be a bit too big for the cover to fit, so you trim them (I used a dremel cutoff disk). 5.25" will fit without trimming but you'll need an adapter to provide a surface to screw them into, I link to a good adapter on that previous thread that I used on my back doors.

 

I know this is an old thread but I was using the above suggestions to switch out the two front door speakers in my 1994 Volvo 940 and once I got into it, I took a slightly different route.

I bought two 5.25" speakers and as stated above they are too small and require an adaptor to catch the sides of the door panel. Instead of drilling out the rivets from the original speaker, putting new holes into door panel and using the adaptor, I opted to cut out the original speaker, leaving just the outer metal ring and drilling into that.

I used metal snips to cut the old speaker out, then a dremel to grind down the remaining tabs. I had the new speaker oriented upside down in the picture so that the audio connector tabs in the back were facing up, however when I went to put the door back together I realized this stretched the speaker wires coming from the door. So I oriented the speakers sideways with the connector tabs pointing towards the back of the car to give it more slack.

I have yet to do the rear doors but I'm hoping it will be just as easy

 

for better sound, use some RTV (silicone aquarium sealer) between the speaker and your flange adapter made from the old speaker, goal is to make that airtight.

 

Very enterprising OAmerigian. There is a story around here going back to WW2 that when stuff broke the Americans would just dump it and move on whereas the Kiwis would fix it with #8 wire. It is a bit of a dig at the throw-away society mindset. Not sure if "#8 wire mentality" has found it's way into American idiom but mindful of the inventiveness I see here it certainly should have.

 

the american expression is fixing things with duct tape and bailing wire. bailing wire is what you call number 8 wire.

 

Very interesting Pierce. The Wiki article talks of baling wire being readily available on farms because it was removed from hay bales. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baling_wire Not sure how far that goes back because I have picked up a few hay bales in my time and certainly in the seventies they were using baling string. This was a sort of hemp fibre although now it's a synthetic. My understanding was that #8 gauge wire was the fencing standard here before high tensile steel. I have done a bit of fencing with high tensile steel.. it is not nice to work with. With the old "soft wire" it would no doubt have been the difference between spreading soft butter and that which has just come out of the fridge. That said I just bought some butter from a Whakatane outfit which was soft out of the fridge. A varsity mate was working on it many years ago.. something about "just add water." Whereas baling wire makes me think of the Richard Gere movie "Days of Heaven" Is Days of Heaven the most beautiful film ever made? | David Thomson | Film | The Guardian duct tape is less of a romantic metaphor and reminds me of.. Mythbusters. Yes I understand that blowing stuff up is part of American culture (holier than thou judge seemed to have missed this point in terms of his sentencing of the Boston bomber) but by God I hate all those shock 'n awe shenanigans with a vengeance.

 

Thank you all for your comments.

I started on the rear door speakers and realized I may have bought the wrong speakers. The original Volvo speakers are 8 ohms and the ones I've purchased are 4 ohms.

I am very new to this so any corrections are much appreciated. I'm driving a 1994 Volvo 940 station wagon with 6 speakers total, 4 in the doors and 2 in the dash. I am using the original Volvo CR-814 radio with Volvo amp located under the steering wheel. All 6 speakers are 8 ohms.

Does anyone know how these are wired coming from the amp? I've read that the R dash and R front door are wired in parallel and the L dash and L front door are as well so that there are 4 channels driving the 6 speakers. Not sure if this is true as I found diagram that I think suggests different. I'm not good with wiring diagrams but it looks like each pair of speakers gets it's own L & R output (do a "find" for the word "radio" to quickly find the diagram or scroll to the 52nd page):

http://www.volvowiringdiagrams.com/v...940%201994.pdf.

Does anyone know for sure how these 6 speaker cars are wired?

If the front speakers are indeed wired in parallel and there are 4 total outputs from the amp, the two parallel 8 ohm speakers (dash and door) would create a 4 ohm impedance for each channel at the amp. The two rear speakers would create an 8 ohm impedance at the amp. It seems strange that Volvo would have 4 output channels, 2 at 4ohms and 2 at 8 ohms. It makes more sense to me that there are actually 6 channels at 8 ohms.

Regardless, I was able to return the speakers that I purchased but I now cannot find 5.25" 8 ohm speakers, only 4 ohms. Has anyone had this issue? Is there a fix or somewhere I can find proper speakers? Is this even a problem?

I have seen elsewhere that some people just stuck 4 ohms speakers in their doors with supposedly no issues, though I would imagine this will overdrive my amp and eventually blow it?

I've seen some suggest putting a resistor on the new 4 ohm speakers, though this seems to degrade the sound quality?

I'm open to just getting a new stereo that will drive the 4 ohm speakers, but this would involve bypassing the amp, which I found a great tutorial on but it's still somewhat involved. I would like to keep the original radio in there if possible. Any suggestions?

 

note that putting a 8 ohm woofer and a 8 ohm tweeter in parallel NOT neccessarily result in a 4 ohm total impedance, as the tweeter won't pass the low frequencies, and the woofer won't pass the high frequencies, so at any given frequency the characteristic impedance could well stay 8 ohms.

the Volvo Greenbook I am looking at shows the dash speakers in parallel across the front door speakers.

now, I bypassed my factory amp, and dumped the factory cassette deck in favor of a modern 50Wx4 powered CD player with aux input and USB inputs... my rear door speakers are 4 ohm (5.25" JL Audio coaxials) and my front door speakers are 6.5" JL Audio 2-way component speakers, with external crossovers and the tweeters mounted in the dashboard (inside the original dash speakers, which I gutted). I mounted the crossovers approximately where the factory amp was located.

I used a wiring kit which had connectors that plugged into the amp and factory stereo harness connectors so I didn't have to butcher any wiring. my car came with harness wiring but no front door speakers.


these are my notes from this install...

color - aftermarket stereo wire colors
(color) - volvo wiring

notes: Dash speakers on connector D to radio
Door speakers on connector E to amplifier under driver side dash
I used component speakers with crossovers, tweeters in dash, woofers in front doors

Left front crossover:
1 front left stereo + white
2 front left stereo - white-black
3 front left door + (blue-yellow E2)
4 front left door - (white E6)
5 front left dash + (brown-white D1)
6 front left dash - (brown D3)

Right front crossover:
1 front right stereo + grey
2 front right stereo - grey-black
3 front right door + (grey-white E3)
4 front right door - (grey E7)
5 front right dash + (grey-red D2)
6 front right dash - (grey D4)

left rear
+ green - (yellow-brown E8)
- green-black - (yellow-grey E12)

right rear
+violet - (green-brown E9)
- violet-black - (green E13)

power etc on main stereo connector D
ground: Black (black pin D10)
switched power from fuse 14: Red (orange pin D11)
batt power from fuse 5: Yellow (green-red pin D9)
antenna: Blue (green-grey pin D12)
dashboard lights: Varies or NC (yellow-white pin D6)
rheostat + (white pin D7) **
rheostat - (black pin D8) **

** don’t connect these, they are for the factory dashboard light dimmer, and no stereo I’ve ever installed can use these correctly

 

Thank you Pierce I am seriously considering taking this route. How did you mount the dash speakers? It looks like I will need to cut mine out as they are molded into the grill. Any suggestions?

 

I took the factory dash speakers out of the car, carefully unfolded the tabs that held the metal screen over the speaker and removed said screen, then ripped out the speaker guts (the cones were already torn from age) and pryed off the magnet and voicecoil too, so just the frame and basket is left. I then glued the little tweeters from my component speakers right in the middle of where the old cone was with RTV (silicone adhesive), and put the grill back on and carefully rebent its tabs, using small pliers with a bit of cardboard wrapped around the grill. came out so you can't tell I did anything.

the tweeters are almost too far from the woofers, such that the sound is a bit too separated. if I did it over, I'd probably mount the tweeter on the door closer to the woofer, just surface mount it right above it probably, and put the crossovers in the doors.


these are the speakers I used for my front door+dash...

VR650-CSi - Car Audio - Evolution® - Discontinued - VR - JL Audio

and these in back
TR525-CXi - Car Audio - Evolution® - TR - Coaxial Systems - JL Audio

 

Where could I get front dash speakers from for my 93 940 Volvo? Also what would the size be? I am trying to get my car fixed up and looking nice. Because it's a mess right now and I olny have to speakers in the front but they aren't in correctly. I have been having a hard time trying to make my car more luxurious. Please help me.

 

you would need to take the stock dash speakers apart, and 'gut' them, then see what you can fit in their plastic frame. the griil is held to the frame by little tabs that you'll need to carefully bend out so it will come off and bend back to replace. slice/scrape off the old speaker cone from the top of the frame, break off the magnet from the back of the frame. pretty sure all you'll be able to fit are little component.tweeters, such as the ones I linked above, with the woofers in the front doors, same as what I did above. You probably could do some plastic hogging to the frame and fit a 3" or so speaker, but that really won't give you much frequency range, unless you have a crossover and woofer.

 

Thank you. I'm assuming you're very knowledgeable about these Volvo's. Should I ask you if I have any further questions about my problems on my 940 Volvo?

 

just post a new thread if its a new problem, more eyes on it the better. be sure to give the year-model (so many people leave this detail out). I'm good with the electronic stuff, there's plenty others here better with the mechanical side of things than I.