Mounting Polk Speakers in 1995 Sport Nautique

[Blamey]

I have a 1995 Sport Nautique and I am replacing the original Clarions with Polks, I have a set of DB651 and a set of MM651. I want to use the MM's in the front and DB's in the back. I originally wanted to mount all the speakers like they were done factory so that they were on the back of the coaming pads with the factory speaks mesh in place.

This issue I have is that the Polks don't seem to be able to rear mount (behind the coaming pads) and mounting them in front of the pads looks a little tricky as I'd have to lift the pads and install a speaker ring.

I need some help figuring out if and how I can mount them behind the pads or if it's not really feasible how to mount them in front of the Pads. I have search a few posts but none of them are to clear to me what was done so I'd like to ask questions if somebody as done this with their speakers.

[kend]

Wanting to put MM651 behind the stock cloth covers as well (one '01 sport); would love to hear from anyone who has made this happen. I don't want the visibility or lack of protection of mounting them on top.

[Blamey]

Because the MM651 have built in grills I think they will be very hard to mount behind the existing grills. After looking again today I am going to mount the mm651 in front of the pannel. I wanted to keep things hidden but it doesn't look feasable without a lot of work.

I may still mount the DBs in the back as they have adapters that could be used with an MDF ring.

[Blamey]

So I have been looking into this some more and have found some plastic speaker spacers on Amazon that seem like they would be great to use to front mount the speakers. Any reason I shouldn't use these?

[Blamey]

Well I went ahead and installed the passenger side MM651 on the plastic spacers and the worked great. I did have to mount them in front of the coaming pad as the MM651 didn't appear to have a good way to mount the spacer on the front of the speaker due to the speaker grill that holds the tweeter being in the way. I used half inch plastic speaker spacers from amazon and the hole was very similar to what was there before. Install wasn't the best (I didn't use stainless screws and didn't re-staple the vinyl). I may redo it to get things lined up and in a way that it will last longer.

It also looks like the spacers will work to rear mount the DB561's, which don't have the speaker grills built in.

[kend]

Thanks for the update; I'm thinking of doing the same but trying to find some white cloth to wrap the speakers (grill and all) in to cover them up. Please post some pics if you can; I'll do the same.

[JT96SS]

Can you post any pictures?

[Blamey]

I'll add some pictures. Might be a couple days before I get a chance to work on the DB651s. The MM651 I've already mounted and I don't want to remove but l'll try get some pics with a description of how I mounted it.

[Blamey]

So I didn't do a great job documenting installing the MM651, As I had already installed these speaker before I got the request for pics. it's really only the one speaker on the coaming pad as I installed the driver side speaker on the kick panel under the dash. That said this image should give you a good idea of what I did.





In the above image, you will see the black plastic ring is the new plastic space I bought from amazon for $8 per pair.. On the MM651 I used this black spacer to replace the factory white spacer in the photo. The factory spacer doesn't work with the MM651 because it covers the screw holes and is too thin to screw into. The new spacer works great and allows you to mount the MM651 on the front of the coaming pad. The spacer is very close in height to the original spacer.

The only difficult parts were fitting the new spacer through the vinyl speaker hole. and making the hole in the foam, behind the vinyl, bigger to fit the wider diameter of the new spacer.

I just squeezed the spacer though the hole and pushed the foam out the way till the spacer fit, not the cleanest install but I plan to replace the vinyl next year and I can improve the install then.
here are some pics of the installed speaker

Front




back

[Blamey]

I did a much better job documenting what I did the the DB651 which I installed as my back speakers. I installed these behind the coaming pad to keep a factory look and the install overall was much easier this .

Here is the first image of the old speaker in place


This is the speaker removed with the old white plastic spacer in place.



Another shot of the factory spacer



The new spacer from Amazon. Thi s is the same spacer I used for the MM651s.


Here is the spacer after I screwed it into the coaming pad



And here is the speaker attached to the space.


Here is a comparison of the old vs the new. Very comparable fit and install/ Overall I think the spacers are much better than what was used by the factory. The DBs have about twice the power rating of the factory speakers and should perform much better sine they aren't 22 years old.

And here is what is looks like from the front.

Overall I don't think this is the best way to install these speakers, the DB's look like they will be best if they are installed on the front (like what I did with MM) as you can use the supplied rubber ring and get a better fit, but if you want a simple install that will be an upgrade this is a fairly simple and cheap option that can be changed at a later date.

[beach]

Do you mind linking to the plastic spacers that you bought? I'm trying to mount MM651UM speakers on my 03 210, but I'm buying larger PVC tubes so that I can keep them behind cloth covers like the factory used. I'll try to take photos and write up how I do it, but the outer tube that the boat vinyl is stapled to needs to be an 8" Schedule 40 tube, so it doesn't look like your 95 would have enough distance to the edge of panels.

[Blamey]

Here you go

http://www.amazon.com/uxcell%C2%AE-S...ilpage_o06_s00

[kend]

Some company selling mm651um on ebay right now for $99/pr. They have great feedback so I took a chance and bought some. Will try your install techniques this weekend; thanks for the pics.

[Blamey]

That's a great price. I got mine off Amazon for $140.

Post pics please, I'm interested in how you end up installing them.

[kend]

Finally got them in. I took the bottom edge of the vinyl loose for about 18" and slide the spacer out from behind the vinyl and replaced it with a bigger ring (8"pvc is just the right size for the polk mm's). Took out the existing grill cloth and found that a 7" embroidery hoop (bamboo) will fit tightly around the polks and fit just like the original Clarions ring did. I noticed that water gets behind that combing board and when it hits the edge of the vinyl/foam stapled edge it soaks in and stays. I took duct tape all the way down the seam over the edge of the vinyl so it should shed water now. Would upload pic but site seems to be having trouble tonight