I have a 1979 vw bus, and I love taking it out on the open road and cruising with my music playing clean and loud. vw buses are not common here on the east coast in the United States, and living in the Nations Capitol area (approx. 10 miles from the White House) brings a whole different dynamic to owning and enjoying a bus within an area filled with the latest and greatest in the automotive industry. Yes, I own an M5, and yes I own A4, but nothing gives me more pleasure than pulling my Type 2 out on the weekends, giving her a bath, and taking her out into the city, or country side diminishing my stress level with the setting of the sun! I also own a 1979 KZ1000, and I'm gong to let you guess out of all four which two share the garage? The M5, and A4 stay in the drive way. The bus, and motorcycle get the indoor privileges. So, you can tell I spare no expense with the bus, or KZ. About four years ago I had some leftover Rockford Fosegate Punch amplifiers (301X, and a 301 Mono) Pioneer, and Realistic (radio shack brand) speakers from a previous car, a Fosgeate P2 sub in box, and a old JVC head unit from 2004. I decided to install it all in the bus. I made sure the head unit was neatly installed in the glovebox, and amps were hidden under the second row of seats with no visible wires. It actually sounded great! I was surprised how leftover, old items would sound, and look so good installed in my bus! It got me thinking... I should just go all out, right? I mean, if your going to do it, do it all the way... So I did. I replaced my Rockford Fosegate Punch amps with a Rockford Fosgate Power amps (1500 watt mono, and a 800 watt 4 channel), a 2000 watt Rockford Fosgate Power 12" sub, and rewired all the amp wires with 2/0 gauge wire. Speaker wire was all redone with 12 gauge speaker wire. Door, and rear speakers were replaced with Rockford Fosegate Power T2 speakers. However, after spending a little more than $2000 I didn't have enough to upgrade my head unit.... Until now! All parts for the new head unit have arrived: I will start the install within the next 4-5 days. I can't wait. Also, I'll post up here my previous stereo installs I've done here. It's going to sound soooooo good!
So, I ripped out all the old wiring, and old (single din) JVC unit I had previously in the bus's glove compartment. I also did I quick connect just to make sure all the new stuff actually worked. Then, I pulled all my old RCA cables from my Rockford Fosgate Power 1500 watt mono, and 800 watt 4 channel amps. Installed the new RG6 premium RCA cables from Monoprice.com If you are re-wiring, or hooking up for the first time, I highly recommend Monoprice.com cables. You cant beat the quality and the price! Much higher quality than Monster Cable, and at a fraction of the price!!! Shouts out to Monoprice! Best wire company in the United States! later on in this post I will do a side-by-side visual comparisonof Monster cable vrs. Monoprice. Yes, it was over kill, but it was the only one I could find at the time. Made 2 circle holes in the back of the new plastic glove box courtesy of BusDepot.com They always have all the parts i need at reasonable prices. So far, the best Bus parts store I have used in the US! Then, I did a quick test fit of the radio in the double Din, plastic headunit enclosure, then drilled more holes in the glovebox to match the double din enclosure. And here I am. I'm waiting for the Samsung hdmi/mhl cable to arrive. I'll post up more pics once its completed!
Cable arrived and worked great... Now, I'm having issues with getting the glove box back in the dash, with or without the radio in the glovebox. I contacted Platinum Sounds in Prince Fredrick, MD. I have an appointment tomorrow at 9am. I took my bus to him to look at last weekend, and he says he can get it back in the dash, no problem.... lol, yeah right, we will see. I'll post pics after everything is done.
... and done. Sounds amazing. Had to take the radio back out, cut the back of the glovebox insert a little to get more depth for the radio to slide far enough back to close the glove box door. Glove box knob now hits the turn on button on the radio. Going to have to change the knob, but that's not a big issue. just need the door to close, not lock. Going to look for a wooden handle, to match my (future) wooden steering wheel. Let me know what you think... My next install should be seat pedestal rubber (top and sides) (before BugOut Car Show). And after that, dual batteries (the right way!)
Thanks midmusq! That is exactly what I'm after, the modern conveniences of modern technology, cleverly hidden from plain view in a (mostly) stock VW Bus. (lol, cant hide those tweeters).
How do you find the mids in the doors, and did you make any sort of enclosure for them, or seal the doors as best you can? This seems to be the biggest bugbear when fitting decent equipment in a Bay window.....I looked into making some custom enclosures where the kickpanels normally fit, but I've other priorities at the moment.... another option is to buy some door pockets with speaker mounts built in, and beef them up with some Fibreglass/MDF or similar, with a shallow enclosure built into the door space.....this would give you more or less the right amount of displacement for a 6.5 inch mid.... love the RF stuff...especially this
To be perfectly honest, my kick panels look like hell! My measurements that day did not turn out great, the holes I made were way to big so I just made do. Lol, I remember being pretty upset about it, and this weekend I'll snap some pics of my misfortunes and post (gotta post the good with the bad!). The good news is that they ended to be replaced anyway do to years of water damage. The speakers came with crossovers and the tweeters had there own round inserts that the speakers can sit in (not necessary, but there if you want them). I made sure and used all Rockford Fosgate Power products.
Usually (in my opinion) cut dashes don't look good, but that looks sweet! That's the best one I've ever seen! Did you do all the work?
I've yet to see some really good kick panel enclosures as aftermarket items.....think they'd sell well if someone developed some...trouble is, it's fairly niche, so I doubt you'd get the price down through mass production, and mould-making, fibreglassing, filling/shaping, gel coating etc. is all hands-on and labour intensive....defies logic when someone shells out £100 on a decent set of drivers, then mounts them in something that'll make them sound like a wasp in a tin....
I thought about doing some type of enclosure, but because of the same reasons I didnt. I bet my speakers would sound twice as well if I did. Maybe on day I'd like to try it myself! I did however take my time and really seal up the door before installing my speakers. I used really thick plastic, and 3M insulating type. My bus was really warm last winter.
I'm in the States (about 6km from Washington DC) Not to far from me in the country there is a place that would do that type of work for me. I don't think it would look great in my bus. My bus has that "old" look to it. Your bus has a more modern look to it, so it would look correct in your bus. I currently have baffles inside my speaker holes, behind the speaker holes are 3M sealed think plastic, mostly for moisture. My 6.5 door speakers sit in the speaker baffles.
I have a 7 inch monitor and did not want to cut the dash so the solution was to make surround and fit ti DIN slot, i have video ipod connection, ps2, dvd/cd 5.1 pro logic, hence the center channel, soon to be moved, 10 inch sub, rear monitor and next is apple tv to be able to stream air play
