Dodge Dakota Build Log

[twisztdauthorit 10+ year member]

****it man im sorry i didnt see this earlier!
you needed to space your rings out dude. you are gonna have a hell of a stupid angle in between the two rings because they were so close and staggered like that //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

and you should have angled the midbass' up higher, then move the rings down a bit so the tweet would fit and the aim would match the tweet.

then put them both on the same plane - or used staples to 'pull' the fleece down to the flushmounted ring you made...

also - you need to stretch your fleece WAY tighter to prevent sags and wrinkles. this is why i told you to use super thin stretchy stuff. takes 10 minutes to find in a fabric store like Jo-Anne Fabrics.

eeehhh. im trying to help, i really am. and it does not look like you sanded the trimmed edge down smooth. you need to get that edge baby soft so your finishing work wont be as tough. cmon maaan!!

=S Been working every day for quite some time and its just getting tiring after a while. I need to finish up soon to so i can start looking for a job.

The spacing wont be to horrific as long as i can get the speakers to fit in there without looking goofy. I haven't sanded anything yet, Im probably going to take that side to the workshop and whip out my air cutter and electric sander.

after that ill lay down another layer and see how it looks. Im sure it will clear up after another layer of FG and some bondo afterwords. Hope for the best but if anything turns out to ugly, Ill have a project waiting for me down to road.

I really want to finish this up so i can start welding my amp rack and building a new box for the sub. And get it all hooked up finally.

 

[twisztdauthorit 10+ year member]

BTW I also have some videos of me doing some work ill post up in 2x speed later on when im done. Figured some people that never done this before would enjoy watching even if my work isn't the best haha.

 

[twisztdauthorit 10+ year member]

cleaned up the 1st pod and cut out the speaker holes. grinded down some ruff edjes and smoothed out the outline a little bit.

MEtal Grinder works wonders on FG!





Any ideas on how to fix the right lip sticking out?^^^I might jsut add a layer of FG to the underside to keep it all tight. Im also gonna have to make up for the space the deadener will take up when i buy some down the road.

 

[twisztdauthorit 10+ year member]

Patching up some spots i missed last time. I Still have a plenty of fiberglass cloth left over so ill probably do 1 more layer and drop some more resin inside to for a better seal at the joints

 

[twisztdauthorit 10+ year member]

forgot to mention my hyperflex 0 awg came in!! The clips are snapped on the fuse box but ill fix it somehow. Other then that all is good:



my 4awg hyperflex on the left and the new 0awg hyperflex in the middle.

 

[Wkbdkid 10+ year member]

Cant comment too much on the pods cause Ive never tried em, but looks like your gonna be doing a lot of bondo an sanding with the wrinkles in there. G/L with it.

 

[twisztdauthorit 10+ year member]

Cant comment too much on the pods cause Ive never tried em, but looks like your gonna be doing a lot of bondo an sanding with the wrinkles in there. G/L with it.

there slowly coming out.. wont be a big issue if i still decide to go the padding/vinyl route cuz it will cover that right up

 

[Wkbdkid 10+ year member]

there slowly coming out.. wont be a big issue if i still decide to go the padding/vinyl route cuz it will cover that right up

yea thatll be good, painting it would been a *****

 

[Goon's 2001 QC 10+ year member]

I think it's looking good,keep up the good work.

 

[Amokie 10+ year member]

I honestly not trying to be mean, but I think you'll be redoing them

 

[req 5,000+ posts]

yea man. you have made some huge mistakes but the plan was so solid. your mold flexed really bad on the rear part of the door, and now there is quite a large gap there. this is why i said make the edges really strong.

you didnt use flexible enough material and you have huge wrinkles now - especially that one behind the tweeter.

i dunno man. i suggest you start over before you get balls deep into sanding and trying to make them look good. use some thinner material, and get the tub stronger and aim the midbass' higher. you are going to be spending so much time sanding and finishing. there are tons of air bubbles in that last layer of glass, if it was me i would ditch this, cut new baffles, and start over man. thin cloth behind the wood base, real strong lip, better speaker placement, and nice strong stretch.

the thing with hot glue man, is when you stretch it over, if you get wrinkles, you can pull it back up, stretch it harder, and glue it back down. you keep going round the whole thing pulling back up the glue and stretching it more until there are no wrinkles and the surface is very very tight. then you glass as SMOOTH as possible and DO NOT put resin\cloth on the back of the pod AT ALL. then trim all the edges and smooth it nice and even.

i wish i had the pictures of my door pod fiberglassing day but i cant get them off the **** memory card!!!

im tellin ya man. you are going thru way more trouble than its worth //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crap.gif.7f4dd41e3e9b23fbd170a1ee6f65cecc.gif

 

[twisztdauthorit 10+ year member]

yea man. you have made some huge mistakes but the plan was so solid. your mold flexed really bad on the rear part of the door, and now there is quite a large gap there. this is why i said make the edges really strong.
you didnt use flexible enough material and you have huge wrinkles now - especially that one behind the tweeter.

i dunno man. i suggest you start over before you get balls deep into sanding and trying to make them look good. use some thinner material, and get the tub stronger and aim the midbass' higher. you are going to be spending so much time sanding and finishing. there are tons of air bubbles in that last layer of glass, if it was me i would ditch this, cut new baffles, and start over man. thin cloth behind the wood base, real strong lip, better speaker placement, and nice strong stretch.

the thing with hot glue man, is when you stretch it over, if you get wrinkles, you can pull it back up, stretch it harder, and glue it back down. you keep going round the whole thing pulling back up the glue and stretching it more until there are no wrinkles and the surface is very very tight. then you glass as SMOOTH as possible and DO NOT put resin\cloth on the back of the pod AT ALL. then trim all the edges and smooth it nice and even.

i wish i had the pictures of my door pod fiberglassing day but i cant get them off the **** memory card!!!

im tellin ya man. you are going thru way more trouble than its worth //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crap.gif.7f4dd41e3e9b23fbd170a1ee6f65cecc.gif

I realize Ive had a lot of mess ups on this as it was my largest FG project so far but i have learned alot from it so far and the next set will definately be better. I just want something that will hold up for a month or two untill i have time to just dedicated myself to one projects. Im not going to back down though, thats the nice thing about fiberglass, you dont like it, you can cut that part out and glass over it. Im sure they will look better once i clean them up.

Alright well i have no idea what happend to the drivers door but i tried to fit it back on and fitting was off pretty bad. I think the FG warped while i pulled it off. Another lesson learned.

I promise you guys that if these dont turn out satisfactory for the time i will redo them but I still want to see what i can turn them in to. You never know, an 800x600 doesnt do it justice.(good & bad)

I honestly not trying to be mean, but I think you'll be redoing them

In the future, most likely.

 

[twisztdauthorit 10+ year member]

taking a small break from FG, I got 2 out of 3 sets of battery terminals in so i decided to replace the factory ones.

The old factory cables where built in to the old terminals so i had to reroute some cables.

Im very satisfied with the way the wiring has come out.

put that 0awg knu 1footer i found to good use



Pics with the big 3 and new battery terminals







This picture is on the side of the battery. If I decide to use a negative run of 0awg to the back, This is where it will connect to.



The best part is... my car still starts! hehe

 

[twisztdauthorit 10+ year member]

got bored and wanted to see what the puppies sound like in a somewhat sealed enclosure. Thats the FG pod looking like ****, im gonna go sand it right now but here is a video of both speakers seeing only 20 watts each they will be seeing 5x that in the car. Volume was also only 3/4 way up.

http://img532.imageshack.us/img532/6681/picture181tz1.flv

not sure if the link works or not, my computer wont open the file =/

 

[twisztdauthorit 10+ year member]

Ok I decided to start over on the drivers side door pod, Since i haven't glued the speaker rings in place or anything. Im going to rip the old FG apart from the wood since the wood is still the right size with the pre drilled bolt holes.(Not the pod thats allready bondo-ed up)

My dad just picked up a Mig welder that im gonna use for whatever battery/amp rack i build. The arc welder was just melting through anything less then 1/8"