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As I posted a few months ago, you can now buy the 17/18 style LED light caps for your older JL 7.7's and 8.8's from JL. I grabbed a set for around $160 and installed them, making my '16 speakers identical to the newer ones with overhead lighting. I did take a ton of pics, planning on a step-by-step install guide, but I will post an abridged review and some tips for now.
The end caps are solidly built, all metal, sealed and of typical JL quality. In a nutshell, you remove the speaker assembly, drill a hole in the end, put the threaded rod on the back of the end caps into the speaker enclosure, tighten a nut from the inside using the supplied 3D printed tool, add/hook the wires to power, reassemble and you are good to go.
The end result is awesome. They provide great overhead light and I am glad I did the project. It is cool that JL is making these parts available to people that want to add the downlight feature to their existing speakers.
Some things to think about....
I took the speakers off the tower, and I am glad I did as it made it easier. I also removed the old end caps, which is not required.
Mark all of your wires as you disassemble, so you don't mess up polarity, etc.
If you want to use the existing power wiring on the '16 G23 it is good to go to the tower side plug, you can use the stock Deutsch plugs, but will need two additional pins on the speaker side for the power wiring you will add (PN 1060-16-0122).
My speakers had a sealed plug for the speaker wire, with no room to get power into the cans. I didn't want to drill a new hole, so I ended up modifying the plug with a Dremel, pic attached. This also required me to have to seal things up with marine silicone, as it does affect the integrity of the waterproof seal on the JL factory speaker plug. Not really a big deal, but something to be aware of. If you planned ahead, you might even be able to get a new speaker side harness from JL with speaker wire and power, not sure.
You can/should mark the alignment of the JL logo before taking things apart, but no matter what you will not get the logo plumb. I recommend getting the caps on and things wired up, but doing final assembly on the boat so you can get the logo clocked perfectly - I ended up taking mine apart and reassembling on the boat because having it slightly off was killing me. : )
Use some wire loom on the external wiring to protect it and give it a clean look. This takes some planning, as it needs to be added early, before you reassemble connectors, etc. I wish I had also added a piece of heat shrink on each end of the wire loom to clean up the ends and hold things in place.
Making or using an existing hook tool to take the Deutch plugs apart is not required (needle nose will work), but it will make your life easier and can be used for other connectors as needed. Pic attached.
It was not a difficult install, it just took some playing around to figure out how get the power into the speaker can and keep things stock looking. I could do a set pretty quickly now, so hopefully this helps. If for some reason you have power going into your speaker cans already, it would take no time at all and I would probably just install on the boat.
I have more pics, and am happy to answer any questions.
JL Part numbers are on the picture of the box attached.
The end caps are solidly built, all metal, sealed and of typical JL quality. In a nutshell, you remove the speaker assembly, drill a hole in the end, put the threaded rod on the back of the end caps into the speaker enclosure, tighten a nut from the inside using the supplied 3D printed tool, add/hook the wires to power, reassemble and you are good to go.
The end result is awesome. They provide great overhead light and I am glad I did the project. It is cool that JL is making these parts available to people that want to add the downlight feature to their existing speakers.
Some things to think about....
I took the speakers off the tower, and I am glad I did as it made it easier. I also removed the old end caps, which is not required.
Mark all of your wires as you disassemble, so you don't mess up polarity, etc.
If you want to use the existing power wiring on the '16 G23 it is good to go to the tower side plug, you can use the stock Deutsch plugs, but will need two additional pins on the speaker side for the power wiring you will add (PN 1060-16-0122).
My speakers had a sealed plug for the speaker wire, with no room to get power into the cans. I didn't want to drill a new hole, so I ended up modifying the plug with a Dremel, pic attached. This also required me to have to seal things up with marine silicone, as it does affect the integrity of the waterproof seal on the JL factory speaker plug. Not really a big deal, but something to be aware of. If you planned ahead, you might even be able to get a new speaker side harness from JL with speaker wire and power, not sure.
You can/should mark the alignment of the JL logo before taking things apart, but no matter what you will not get the logo plumb. I recommend getting the caps on and things wired up, but doing final assembly on the boat so you can get the logo clocked perfectly - I ended up taking mine apart and reassembling on the boat because having it slightly off was killing me. : )
Use some wire loom on the external wiring to protect it and give it a clean look. This takes some planning, as it needs to be added early, before you reassemble connectors, etc. I wish I had also added a piece of heat shrink on each end of the wire loom to clean up the ends and hold things in place.
Making or using an existing hook tool to take the Deutch plugs apart is not required (needle nose will work), but it will make your life easier and can be used for other connectors as needed. Pic attached.
It was not a difficult install, it just took some playing around to figure out how get the power into the speaker can and keep things stock looking. I could do a set pretty quickly now, so hopefully this helps. If for some reason you have power going into your speaker cans already, it would take no time at all and I would probably just install on the boat.
I have more pics, and am happy to answer any questions.
JL Part numbers are on the picture of the box attached.
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