seat belt just overlapped; rear woofer

[Micky]

Follow-up on seat-belt.

Yes, it was just folded over.

But I can't figure out how it happened. I can easily image something happening to the belt outside of the car body to make it fold over, but the spring on the retractor is no where near powerful enough to pull it in in that case. And the next time I put the belt on it should have pulled out the quarter inch that was doubled.

So what made it double over inside the fender, below the left rear window? And why doesn't it happen all the time.

After I took out the rear seat cushion, then pulled back the hard fuzzy cardboard from the top lower boot, and then took off four nuts holding the seat back in place, then 4 screws on the left panel, plus pulling it out of several clips, I was able to pull the belt back in, since it had been totally pulled out. One good thing, the slot it goes through had a 19th centery keyhole enlargment at each end, so if the belt were pulled ot the side, it was easy to undo the doubling over.

1) I read that if the belt doesn't recoil as well it used to, washing the belt would fix that. In a pan of soapy water. Any opinions on that.

2) I found I had a woofer and an amplifier behind the back seat. It's not in that location in sedans because the seatbacks went down for skis etc. and it can't mount under my rear deck because I don't have one. The shop manual is designed around the sedan, and I have the convertible supplement, but can't remember if has anything. It's 250 pages but only about 10 or 20 are about the body.

The entire foam ring around the speaker cone had turned almost to dust. And surprise, the speaker/amp was unplugged. I wonder if the previous owner did that, or if it was never plugged in.

Is it worth $25 for a re-foaming kit, meant specifically for this speaker:

or should I just glue on some cloth-backed vinyl, thinner than uphostery, meant for clothing? What glue should I use?

Or I have some spare vinyl top material? Sturdier but might slow down the speaker. Or plain cloth of various kinds? Or clear vinyl, the thickest gauge the fabric store had?

[Tekkie®]

Micky posted for all of us...

The retractor springs lose their vitality. Washing it wouldn't hurt it as long you don't use anything detrimental.

[FromTheRafters]

Micky has brought this to us :

[...]

My guess is that the foam starting to fail caused the voice coil to rub and short which in turn caused the sound to distort. This can cause bad sound as well as causing the amp to blow a fuse. This is probably why the amp was disconnected. You probably need a recone and not just a new foam edge. If you don't do it just right, it will rub again and short the new voice coil, so it might be even better to have it done by someone used to doing this kind of repair.

No, it is hard enough to get it set just right using the correct edge or a whole new recone kit. Normal fabrics don't work well in applications where radial characteristics are important.

[Micky]

This is certainly possible, but I checked yesterday and didn't hear it or feel it.

The car is from 2000 and I bought it in 2011. They claimed it was owned by the wife of the owner, and I know that's a standard sort of lie, but I found some evidence elsewhere that indicated it might well be true. She was supposed to have gone back and forth between South Carolina and Florida, so maybe that's why it only lasted 11 years. Maybe they disconnected it just before thy resold it.

$25 was stretching it. No way will I pay enough fot someone else to do it. Simplyspeakers charges 65 just for refoaming plus I'd have to wrap it and ship it. Too much money for a car that will probably not last me 2 more years, and reconing is a lot more than that I expect.

Well they used paper to connect the cone for decades and I actually have two speakers from the 1930's that I've been using in my bathroom for 40 years, in my old apartment and now in my house, and they still sound good. I don't take steamy showers or baths, the mirror never fogs, so the bathroom isn't a specially harsh environment.

But you've convinced me and I'll spend the $25 for the foam kit.

Thanks.

[Micky]

Your idea of cheap might be different from mine, especially since I actually have thought the sound is good the way it is, and it will be hard to keep the car even 2 more years, but I'll do it any way.

About 40 years ago I did this either with soft leather or with clear vinyl, in about 8 pieces that I cut myself, but I can't remember what I did with the speaker after I did this.

Good idea.

Maybe that's why it was disconnected.

.... So I'd connected it before and didn't hear anything, but could feel the cone move a little. I reconnected it yesterday, and turned up the volume, and I could hear something, and no bad noises.

I think the volume was low because there is no surround.

the whole bunch together was only $35? Just curious because I only have one speaker to do. I took the speaker out of one door last year and it was in fine condition, like new afainoticed. I don't why the rear one suffered so much.

Didnt' know about them, but they don't seem to sell parts anymore, at

Googling for dalhquist repair parts brings up Simplyspeakers.com, the same place I listed above. Dahlquist says they have no authorized repair companies, but fwiw I don't have a Dahlquist speaker anyhow.

The places that sell the surr0ounds also include glue. It may well be plain white glue but they're not going to tell you that. Instead they say it's made specilally for them! If you zoom in on the picture, there is no brand name of course, just a white label with text.

(They have questions and answers, a different set I think for each model of foamkit. One guy wrote in a question, What would he buy if there was a rush and he didn't have time to wait for them to ship it to him. I think he was trying to be sly, so as to never buy the kit and just learn what the right glue is, but the answer he got woudln't have helped him.)

There is also repair-parts.com but they a) want 5 to 15 dollars more money, cheapest is 30. b) they only list by diameter and don't have any 9" speakers while simplyspeakers actually lists kits by car, year, and model. They have one for a 2000 to 2003 Toyota Solara, and the model number includes a 9. (For 2004 to 200?7, the model number inclueds an 8.)

But I wrote them anyhow to make sure that Solara includes the convertible, which has the speaker/amp in a different location, and could conceivable use a different size speaker.

Now that I think abou it, I'm sure it does. They took sedans and cut the top off to make the convertibles that year and maybe always, and I'm sure they took the same speaker/amp from the rear deck and put it down on the floor behind the rear seat back cushion. (This would mean rerouting the spearker wires, but they looked original. I'll have to look more closely next time. )