99 Air Nautique Speaker Replacement

[hornsfan]

So I'm a 1st time boat owner and recently purchased a 99 Air Nautique. There are 4 speakers which I can see 2 towards the back 1 towards the front and 1 under the steering wheel.

I want to say these are all 5 1/4 inch and they are all back mounted. Would it be possible to switch all these out with top mounted 6 1/2 in. speakers? Specifically these Polk db651s martine certified speakers.

http://www.polkaudio.com/caraudio/db/index.php#db651s

Thanks for any help or suggestions.

[vr6mole]

Just went through last night and ripped the speakers out of our 01 SAN.

All of the speakers are 6 1/2. Flush mounting them to the vinyl will be slightly customized unless you just screw right into the vinyl, which I wouldn't recommend.

Easiest way to get to the speaker is to remove the 6 bolts or so from under the gunnel and remove the side padding. This will give you direct access to the speaker and also allow you to remove the mesh speaker cover from the inside of the padding.

[hornsfan]

vr6mole, thanks for your response. Right now that mesh is coming apart and covering the existing speaker. I guess what i was wanting to know is if I remove the speaker and cut the mesh out could I top mount the db651's and screw directly from the front?

[crowland]

search this forum there are several people that have done exactly what you are talking about doing - you merely cut the mesh in an X pattern and they drop in. Be sure to take some the appropriate precautions-when you top mount those grills you drill through the vinyl, and it would also be wise to add some reinforcement to the side panels that you will be mounting the speakers to.

[hornsfan]

crowland, i was just reading that thread when I saw you respond. Thanks for the help.

[Miljack]

You will need to make some rings to front mount the speakers to the combing pads, you can use MDF, but you'll need to coat them with resin, I used HPDE on mine, it still takes some time to do properly, don't try to mount them with original spacers on there, they won't work.

There was a large post about someone in TX who REALLY detailed his boat (almost completely disassembled it!), and I think in that thread he had some good pics of the rings he made to front mount the speakers.

[bmh2208]

I'm the one that tore his 210 apart to clean. The thread is here. It gotta a bit off topic in the end.....

http://planetnautique.com/index.php?...pring+cleaning

The pics are somewhere in there, just gotta look. I replaced all the stock speakers. The way that CC mounted them was a joke. I cut out all the mesh pieces. I then made mdf baffles and coated them and then installed them into the vinyl. It made for a much better mounting surface.

Funny enough, I'm just getting around to spring cleaning '09. I won't be going anywhere near as far as I did the first time. Mainly just cleaning up and finishing up stuff that I didn't finish from the first time.

I'm replacing all my polks because I blew the highs in all 6. Gonna go wetsounds!

[bmh2208]

The pics start out on page 8 of the thread and go on to 9. Goodluck!