Running wire

[ekincam 10+ year member]

I was running speaker 12 AWG speaker wire into my door, huge PITA, and the car has a rubber conduit that fits into the door on one side and into the door frame at the other. There are two layers of metal at that part of the chassis.

The first layer of metal is the layer that the rubber conduit mounts to. The next layer is about 1" from that, towards the inside of the car, and has a square opening of about 2.5" x 2.5" that is just metal. The factory wiring runs directly through that opening but after I ran everything, I noticed some scrapes on the insulation and that the speaker wire had to touch the bottom of that bare metal edge, not much pressure - jus touching, because of the way the wire has to be ran.

I used split loom plastic tubing and zip-tied it tight to the wire, would that be sufficient protection for the wire or is there something better? I just don't want the metal edge to eventually cut through the insulation jacket.

Is there some type of disconnect I can put near that location in case I have to remove that rubber conduit for some reason? There are two factory wiring harnesses in that area that can be disconnected in that area should the door wiring need to be removed. Would insulated quick disconnects work just fine?

I am running 150W RMS into my door components.

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[audioarsonal 10+ year member]

I would pesonally re run the wire just to be safe.But maybe wrap some eletrical tape around it just for added protection plus the loom.

 

[blazeplacid 10+ year member]

id just use 16ga for the fronts

150 watts is nothing for 16 ga

should be fine

12 is over kill even for most subs

 

[ekincam 10+ year member]

The reason I'm using 12 AWG is because that's what my amp kit came with and I figured I'd make both sides match so I bought another 20 ft for the other side. The run for the passenger side is about 12 ft and the driver side was about 17 ft since the amp is in the trunk on the passenger side.

The wires are zip-tied down on the inside of the car to bundles of factory wiring, so there isn't much movement there, however, there is about 2 inches of unsecured wiring to that metal edge and then about 6 inches until it goes into rubber conduit.

There really isn't any other way to run the speaker wires because there is nothing else to secure the speaker wire to in that area other than the factory wires and I'd rather not drill holes to use screw down zip ties because I don't even know how I'd get a drill into that area. If you've ever been under your dash with the brake pedal against the top of your head, the the clutch against the side of you face and your legs sticking out the driver door, you can understand what I'm working with.

Like I said, the wire just touches the metal edge metal edge... Would something like rubber weatherstripping or silicone caulking work?

 

[ekincam 10+ year member]

I just thought of something. The place that installed my components hacked up my stock speakers - they cut the cone out, including the basket, leaving only the plastic frame. They then attached a piece of MDF to the frame with some screws and epoxy and cut holes for the woofer and tweeter. Around the plastic frame and wood, they wrapped this metal foil with black gummy or tarry stuff on the back around where the plastic and MDF meet.

I'm guessing this is sound deadening of some sort. It doesn't have any type of markings on it anywhere. Would something like this work and what exactly is it?

 

[MrBill04 10+ year member]

the wire loom will work... thats what it's for, protecting wires.