This might be Triumph-Standard sacraligious - but 20 years ago I cut two big
holes and installed flush surface mounted Jensen coaxial 6"x9"s in the
fiberboard panel in the back seating area just in front of the gas tank on my
TR4. There is just enough cavity space in the lower two corners between the
gas tank and body metal (with a little bending of a sheet metal lip). The
speakers and flat finishing grilles stick out about 1 inch forward of the
fiberboard panel so when I tuck in the hood sticks COVER (cover corners have
6x9 corner notches cut out) everything finishes up FLUSH and looks like
factory installed! The real benefit is I haven't lost any space on the back
porch area and the speakers look like a pain to steal if they are at all even
noticed hiding there!
The downside? It's certainly not a 60's stock setup, you have to cut
irreversible 6"x9" corner holes in hood stick cover .. you have to cut holes
in the fiberboard (approx 5"x8") ..you have to get a little creative bolting
the speakers to the fiberboard (double nutting) to hold speakers at a one
inch projection, you have to bend a little part of the sheet metal to fit the
magnet end of speaker between tank and inner body sheet metal without hitting
anything (at least for these big old Jensen coaxial speaker magnets) and
finally you have to tuck in the cover around the two speakers (two flaps each
speaker is all) each time you raise or lower the roof sticks. Oh and when I
use the tonnue cover the speakers get muffled under there - but with the roof
in up position the sound projects throughout the cabin quite well.
I think I am going to keep this set-up for my current restoration (going to
cut new holes in a brand new hood stick cover) as I think it's about the best
place for two big speakers. I've tried 'under dash' and 'side board'
locations that didn't work out too well in the past. And I can't see cutting
holes in my doors. Last year when the car was running I didn't really use the
radio much when driving around - the TR4 motor sounds and swishing breezes
sounded a lot better uninterupted by radio music that was trying too hard to
be heard. If it was a 'daily driver' it might be a different story - we'll
see in 2002!
Carl
'64 TR4 in restore mode
|