GCncsuHD
New member
I had some free time last night so I did this little project. As can be expected, the stock XL radio, with just the two speakers in the doors, wasn't cutting it. This is a daily driver/work truck, so nothing extreme was needed, so I ditched the stock radio for a Kenwood receiver with ipod control, HD radio, and bluetooth, went online and picked up a pair of Kicker 6x8 coaxials on sale along with a Kicker 10" subwoofer and ported enclosure. I had a leftover 200w amp from a previous project so I was ready to go.
Now then the issue, behind the seat in my regular cab is a handy dandy tool storage tray on the drivers side and the jack on the passenger side. I wanted to keep that handy storage so I decided to mount the enclosure on the passenger side, no problem, just removed the jack and mount and threw that in the toolbox in the back. Now then the tool tray was another issue. It was about 4" too long, so it would not fit back there with the enclosure, bummer. Not only that, but the port exits the box on that side and additional clearance is needed, larger than the size of the port, so that it does not mess with the tuning of the port.
So I decided to cut the tray down to size, I cut out about 10" from the tray to allot for that clearance. I didn't actually measure it, just eyeballed it and called it good.
I used a cutoff wheel to make the cut. Discarded the extra piece, and slid the two halves together. Then I drilled small 1/8" holes directly across from each other every few inches on either side of the halves. Using small black zip ties I attached the two halves.
As you can see my cuts weren't very precise, I could have used a straight edge, or gone back to even them up, but this is just a work truck, I needed it to be functional, not pretty, besides the epoxy in the next step was going to fill in those gaps just fine.
If I wanted it to look nicer, I could have sanded the epoxy down smooth, but this is going to be covered up by random junk, so I called it a night and put it back together.
Installed
Finished product
So there you have it, a functional tool tray again.
Now then the issue, behind the seat in my regular cab is a handy dandy tool storage tray on the drivers side and the jack on the passenger side. I wanted to keep that handy storage so I decided to mount the enclosure on the passenger side, no problem, just removed the jack and mount and threw that in the toolbox in the back. Now then the tool tray was another issue. It was about 4" too long, so it would not fit back there with the enclosure, bummer. Not only that, but the port exits the box on that side and additional clearance is needed, larger than the size of the port, so that it does not mess with the tuning of the port.
So I decided to cut the tray down to size, I cut out about 10" from the tray to allot for that clearance. I didn't actually measure it, just eyeballed it and called it good.
I used a cutoff wheel to make the cut. Discarded the extra piece, and slid the two halves together. Then I drilled small 1/8" holes directly across from each other every few inches on either side of the halves. Using small black zip ties I attached the two halves.
As you can see my cuts weren't very precise, I could have used a straight edge, or gone back to even them up, but this is just a work truck, I needed it to be functional, not pretty, besides the epoxy in the next step was going to fill in those gaps just fine.
If I wanted it to look nicer, I could have sanded the epoxy down smooth, but this is going to be covered up by random junk, so I called it a night and put it back together.
Installed
Finished product
So there you have it, a functional tool tray again.
