Dan Sarandrea (Phila)
Waitin' On Parts...
I am not a stereophile...just looking to install a modestly priced system into the car without butchering the doors and door cards.
I wanted to mount speakers in the kick panel areas of the car, but as you know, on the late model cars the frunk release handle lives in that space on the driver's side, so something has to be done to relocate the handle.
Here are the speakers and pods/enclosures:
Of course the speaker mounts can't be installed until the carpet is put back into place. Speaker pod source: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Speaker-pod...5?pt=UK_In_Car_Technology&hash=item5adee23a59
Here's where you can see that the OEM frunk handle has to be moved:
With the help of JimD, LookforJoe and others, I thought it would be a good idea to "throwback" to the pull release/pop-up style of latch as fitted to early cars.
Got a latch and bracket from Midwest Bayless, flipped the latch so that it pulls to open from the left rather than the right, and fabbed up a bracket to hold the end of the cable sheath.
The hardest part of this was enlarging the hole in the operating lever to use a pivoting cable stop!!! Geez, the manufacturer case-hardened this part so that it was like trying to drill into armor plate!! I could never find a drill that would work but luckily I had a Dremel side cutting bit that would bite. I free-handed the enlargement and the extra notch for the return spring.
After experimentng with various universal choke cables, I found this in the Dorman catalog, #55203 universal cable with a locking release handle. Mmmm, chrome, shiny:sun: Made the mounting bracket from a 4"x4" L-bracket from Home Depot.
Here's the operating handle mounted in place with thread-cutting cap screws:
There's just enough clearance to fit the speaker pod in place under the new release cable.
So now the frunk behaves just like one on a 75-78---pull the lever inside and the lid pops up. To close, gently drop in place then press above the latch area until it clicks.
I do not think using this particular handle would work if you decide to retain the original "over-center" late model latch. The handle's ability to "lock" into place is not strong enough to overcome the spring tension built into the late-model pull-down latch. What will happen is over the course of a few minutes the spring tension will cause the handle to creep back into the shaft and then of course the frunk will not be fully closed.
I wanted to mount speakers in the kick panel areas of the car, but as you know, on the late model cars the frunk release handle lives in that space on the driver's side, so something has to be done to relocate the handle.
Here are the speakers and pods/enclosures:
Of course the speaker mounts can't be installed until the carpet is put back into place. Speaker pod source: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Speaker-pod...5?pt=UK_In_Car_Technology&hash=item5adee23a59
Here's where you can see that the OEM frunk handle has to be moved:
With the help of JimD, LookforJoe and others, I thought it would be a good idea to "throwback" to the pull release/pop-up style of latch as fitted to early cars.
Got a latch and bracket from Midwest Bayless, flipped the latch so that it pulls to open from the left rather than the right, and fabbed up a bracket to hold the end of the cable sheath.
The hardest part of this was enlarging the hole in the operating lever to use a pivoting cable stop!!! Geez, the manufacturer case-hardened this part so that it was like trying to drill into armor plate!! I could never find a drill that would work but luckily I had a Dremel side cutting bit that would bite. I free-handed the enlargement and the extra notch for the return spring.
After experimentng with various universal choke cables, I found this in the Dorman catalog, #55203 universal cable with a locking release handle. Mmmm, chrome, shiny:sun: Made the mounting bracket from a 4"x4" L-bracket from Home Depot.
Here's the operating handle mounted in place with thread-cutting cap screws:
There's just enough clearance to fit the speaker pod in place under the new release cable.
So now the frunk behaves just like one on a 75-78---pull the lever inside and the lid pops up. To close, gently drop in place then press above the latch area until it clicks.
I do not think using this particular handle would work if you decide to retain the original "over-center" late model latch. The handle's ability to "lock" into place is not strong enough to overcome the spring tension built into the late-model pull-down latch. What will happen is over the course of a few minutes the spring tension will cause the handle to creep back into the shaft and then of course the frunk will not be fully closed.
