Volvo 480 Club Europe

Thought I'd share this with you all.

So, I started off with a pair of V3 Vibe Slick 5 speakers. They're a nice 5 1/4" speaker with a separate tweeter. Both my original fronts were shot; The left side dead, the right side crackled.

So, start of by removing the door handle plastic and door trim, leaving you three big screws to remove



Then pop off the speaker grill to remove two more



Door card should then pop off off and you can see how Volvo connect the tweeters.



Lower speaker is simply a case of removing the screws that hold the door pocket on, swap over and you're done.

The tweeter gets a little more complicated... because you'll find with a component set, your tweeter is going to be considerably bigger.

Option 1:

Keep factory tweeter, connect existing tweeter to your crossover and hope for the best

Option 2:

Mount the tweeter elsewhere - I considered this. Mounting the tweeter on the front corner plastic of the door would probably give better imaging. It wouldn't however, give me a nice standard look. so

Option 3:

Make your tweeters fit. First prise the front off. If you're considering saving the tweeters, they actually bolt in from the rear and you'd probably have to take the handle assembly off to reach this nut



However, I had no such intention, so prise the front off, rip the cone out and you can rotate the backing off, leaving you a nice square hole in which to fit a round tweeter...so, out came the snips...



and look at that...



However, at this point, CHECK your clearances... I realised it was going to foul the door handle plastic so off came the grill.



then it just a case of mounting the crossover and wiring up.



and refitting....



Lovely...

whole thing took a couple of leisurely hours

jifflemon wrote:Thought I'd share this with you all.

So, I started off with a pair of V3 Vibe Slick 5 speakers. They're a nice 5 1/4" speaker with a separate tweeter. Both my original fronts were shot; The left side dead, the right side crackled.

So, start of by removing the door handle plastic and door trim, leaving you three big screws to remove



Then pop off the speaker grill to remove two more



Door card should then pop off off and you can see how Volvo connect the tweeters.



Lower speaker is simply a case of removing the screws that hold the door pocket on, swap over and you're done.

The tweeter gets a little more complicated... because you'll find with a component set, your tweeter is going to be considerably bigger.

Option 1:

Keep factory tweeter, connect existing tweeter to your crossover and hope for the best

Option 2:

Mount the tweeter elsewhere - I considered this. Mounting the tweeter on the front corner plastic of the door would probably give better imaging. It wouldn't however, give me a nice standard look. so

Option 3:

Make your tweeters fit. First prise the front off. If you're considering saving the tweeters, they actually bolt in from the rear and you'd probably have to take the handle assembly off to reach this nut



However, I had no such intention, so prise the front off, rip the cone out and you can rotate the backing off, leaving you a nice square hole in which to fit a round tweeter...so, out came the snips...



and look at that...



However, at this point, CHECK your clearances... I realised it was going to foul the door handle plastic so off came the grill.



then it just a case of mounting the crossover and wiring up.



and refitting....



Lovely...

whole thing took a couple of leisurely hours

Got my pair of Clarion delivered 2 days ago. I will keep the existing tweeters and if they happen to be shot I will go down the crossover road thanks to your How To

The crossover system in the 480 is VERY simple. There's a capacitor on the tweeter, that quite simply, blocks lower frequency stuff from reaching the tweeter.

Nothing on the lower speaker, which means you're effectively getting double frequency. Also don't forget that as your wiring in parallel, you'll be halving the impedance; I didn't bother checking what the original speakers were, but just bare it in mind.