how to - Building Kick panels **pics**

[fossil99ca 10+ year member]

Let me finish posting all the pics. hope this works

Thought I would share my kick building project. If you **** at fiber glassing and making it look good, like I do, this will be very helpful. I have good sized plastic kick panels on my Maxima. I thought I would use them to keep the stock appearance around the trim and use the stock mounting points. I am not going into all the details, but wanted to show my technique. It was very easy to get a really good finish without doing a lot of sanding, etc. I won’t show all the finish work like painting, Bondo work or sealing. This took me about 5 hours in total, not including drying time.

A must tool for this project is a Dremmel (sp) tool. I bought one brand new for $10 on sale, with all the attachments. You will especially need the cut off tool. Use safety glasses unless you want to find out what a broken bit does at 5000 rpm.

Here we go.

1) Using the stock plastic kick panel, I set the location of the speaker. Cut a hole large enough to mount the magnet though. It doesn’t need to be pretty as this will be all covered. Don’t make it too big as you want to preserve the stiffness of the plastic. Don’t cut the stock mounting points for reattachment.

2) Cut a piece of 3/8 plywood to the hole size for the speaker and any extra you might need for a grill. It doesn’t need to be that thick as it will be reinforced later. Mount the “ring” of wood to the plastic kick panel any way possible (epoxy), setting the angle you want and checking the depth of the speaker in the car so it has lots of room to spare for the magnet, around 1”. Doesn’t need to be pretty or that strong.

3a/b) Using an old pair of woman’s nylons (finally a good use for nylons), stretch them over your assembly. It conforms just amazingly to any shape as opposed to using felt. It is so thin and stretchy it won’t “bulk out” the existing framework. Make it as tight as possible without warping the plastic, otherwise you will get some wrinkles (see later). I used needle and thread on the back side to tie it tight and make it conform to all the angles of the plastic. It only needs to be pretty on the front side.

4) (Not a great picture) Now “lightly” fiberglass epoxy the nylon all over the front side, making sure to join the wood and plastic to the nylon. It doesn’t need to be that strong, just enough to hold the shape. I used too much epoxy and hadn’t pulled the nylon tight in places, so I got some wrinkles from the weight of the epoxy. Experience will fix this.

5a/b) Using a Dremmel and utility knife, cut away the nylon on the back and speaker hole. Now enlarge the hole in the plastic, close to where the nylon joins it. Remove the temporary wood bracing as much as you can. You should be left with a shell. The nylon should hold the plastic ridged enough and the wood ring in place

6a/b) Since the nylon will not be strong enough to withstand being “kicked”, or if you are using big speakers. Fiberglass the back side where you won’t see it. It doesn’t need to be pretty, just strong. The nylons previously, made the perfect shape. Join it to the wood and plastic. On the front it looks no different.

7) Cut back the excess fiber glass

8) Finished product. Stock appearance! Held in place with all the stock mounting hardware. Once I fill in the wrinkles and paint, they will look really good. I will make another post on how I made them “sealed”.

Click to read more...

 

[fossil99ca 10+ year member]

more pics

 

[fossil99ca 10+ year member]

done

 

[HiAmplidude 10+ year member]

Dude... you're kidding me. That looks like pure... excellence! Nice work.

 

[fossil99ca 10+ year member]

Now to make them “sealed”.

1)I mounted the kick panel in place in the car. Using an old cotton sheet (with no holes) I lined the inside cavity of the kick panel as best as I could, trying to fill all the empty voids that I could use for air space. I left extra cotton lying out the hole to allow for expansion

2)Using “expanding foam” from any hardware store, I first wetted the cotton with water. Water is what cures the foam and having some extra water will help it dry faster. I sprayed the inside of the cavity with the foam about half full. I first temporarily plugged the opening of the speaker hole to allow the foam to expand under pressure into all the irregular spaces of the kick panel, maximizing the enclosed space. The cotton sheet will hold the foam. Some thought needs to be taken as not to make it too big so you can still get it out.

3)After letting it expand for 20 minutes, release some of the pressure of the foam so you don’t explode your kicks from over pressure. Cover your car floor with paper to protect the carpet from the foam as it expands out the speaker hole.

4)Once dry, remove you kick panel from the car You now have a perfectly shaped foam ball of the internal space of your kick panel.

5)Now epoxy the cotton so it is will hold the shape. Let it dry.

6)Using screw drivers or scrapers or whatever, start removing all the dryed foam out of the cavity. You are now left with an epoxy coated cotton shell that is your new sealed enclosure. It is fairly strong but for people with big speakers you may wish to take it one step further and fiber glass the inside of the cotton. I would also like to try using fiberglass instead of the cotton next. This might work but there is a possibility that the foam will extrude thru the glass mesh. Maybe double line the glass with something to protect the car, then remove it later. Don’t use plastic as it wont breath and let water vapor into dry the foam.

I'm not saying this is the best way to do it but it might stir some creative thoughts.

Enjoy

 

[jellyfish420 10+ year member]

interesting...i like //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 

[req 5,000+ posts]

i dunno about that second part.

i think i jut would have fiberglassed over that hole in the back..

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/tongue.gif.6130eb82179565f6db8d26d6001dcd24.gif

 

[krouchchocolate 10+ year member]

when using fiberglass like that....how do you mold it into the shape you want...i wanna try fiberglass one day.

 

[fossil99ca 10+ year member]

i dunno about that second part.
i think i jut would have fiberglassed over that hole in the back..

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/tongue.gif.6130eb82179565f6db8d26d6001dcd24.gif

Just fiberglassing of the hole, you would loose your mounting depth. Second I was tying to create some air space for the speaker to work.

 

[msimon 10+ year member]

Just fiberglassing of the hole, you would loose your mounting depth. Second I was tying to create some air space for the speaker to work.

Well, if you wanted to fiberglass the back without losing mounting depth you could try something like this:











Just throwing more ideas out there...

 

[HiAmplidude 10+ year member]

could also cover off the area behind where the panel would go, and fiberglass mold that, then trim it to meet up with your front piece. Still a bit of work, but takes advantage of every little square inch back there. Nice job still, though.

 

[Alpineinstaller 10+ year member]

cool way of doing things.

 

[fossil99ca 10+ year member]

could also cover off the area behind where the panel would go, and fiberglass mold that, then trim it to meet up with your front piece. Still a bit of work, but takes advantage of every little square inch back there. Nice job still, though.

Thanks

I thought of doing that two but I was to scared to fiber glass inside the car. Also, since I would be working on a vertical surface it would also be difficult to stick the fiberglass to a plastic bag liner, wich most people use, having it pull away from the car all the time. It would be mush easyier to stick it right to the car but then you would never get it out.

As far as using every little bit of space, this system worked really well. For example there were indentations in the cotton of bolt heads, wires runs, etc. The foam really pushes into everywere but the cotton keeps it from getting behind things (like wires) so you can still get it out.

 

[Alpine CDA-9815 10+ year member]

Looks pretty good man, good work.