2003 Mercedes S500 System overhaul

[Handcrafted Car Audio 42]

This system was built by a shop in California before the owner of the vehicle moved out here to Arizona. The goal of the build was all SQ and, while some of the fabrication was okay looking, alot of it simply did not match with the quality of the sound. Also, it was pretty difficult to get to all of the amplifiers or the bit one if you needed to.

So, the new goals for the new build were to dress up the trunk a little bit more so that it's style would be complimentary to the vehicle and to the sound systems. The door pods needed to be redone to accept a new size speaker. The tweeter pods in the a pillar needed to be completely rebuilt to allow for a much larger overall tweeter whose angle could be adjusted after the fact. The dash panel needed to be reworked because it was simply textured and painted black and everything was held together with hot glue! Needless to say, it was not something that could be removed many times before the MDF structure was ruined. Well, enough babble, here's the breakdown.

This is what it looked like before hand. It had a carpeted piece that covered it all up when he didn't want it to be shown. The sub enclosure hangs down in the middle. Behind the amps on the sides are the other amps and the Bit One. like I said, pain in the ass to get to.

Here, I started to mock up the new amp rack which would be welded out of steel. The MDF is placed up against the same mounting points that the existing system used.

This piece is the mock-up of where the Bit One will sit in the end.

I used this piece to ensure the location of each "amp" when I reassembled it outside the car.

Kinda like that.

Here, I am adding the piece that will trim out the amp.

As you can see, I got the whole front trim piece done and then welded it to the frame. This piece is at an angle so that the Bit one can be seen easier once everything is assembled and to add some style.

Kind of a rough idea of what it will end up looking like.

I wanted to mimic the shape of the trunk with this piece, so I used a piece of 1/4x1/4 mdf and glued it in place. This then became my piece to flush trim with and later, as a template.

Here's the rack being test fitted.

This is where I used that piece as a template to turn the shape into a two part piece. Now, I can wrap the majority of it in one material and have a press in insert from another material. You can also see where I tapped the steel for mounting points.

Here's the insert piece.

In the areas where we could not use screws, I used these 1/2" by 1/8" metal dowel rods which were glued into the bottom of the plastic panel and then fit into the 18" holes in the steel.

Here is the top piece all wrapped up. We used a headliner like material which will be used in other parts of the trunk. The aluminum is simply laminate.

here you can see the nice edge left on the bottom because of the 1/16 x 1/2" rabbet I used.

Here's some almost finished shots. Note how the wiring is hidden underneath the panel and everything seems to be kinda floating.

So, these new tweeters are freakin huge so i had to think outside the box a bit when it came to incorporating them into the a-pillar. Plus, I have always thought it would be cool to mount a tweeter on a ball & cup kind of mount so that it could be adjustable after the fact. So, here's what i did.

Yes, that was completely necessary!

Before I taped these down, I glued an MDF trim ring to the foam so that the fiberglass would bond to that.

Ha ha

We were able to get most of the foam out of there.

Then we just ran some acetone on the inside to get rid of the rest.

We wrapped em in that same headliner material without a seam! Then the speaker mounts and you get an idea of what it's gonna be like. I wasn't too happy with the way it looked at this point because the difference in diameter between the speaker and the ball. It was only like 3/16" but still it was weird. So I made these.

Kinda looks like an acorn right?

The existing dash kit was a two part piece. It had one piece that went into the dash opening and was secured with screws. Then it had a trim piece that covered up the mounting screws and trimmed everything out. I pretty much just refinished what was already there.

As you can see, I painted it black, just cuz. Also, you can see the two magnets that are sunk into the piece.

And you can see these two magnets

Here's the dash kit, all wrapped in matching vinyl and magnetized in place. Now, he can remove the dash panel easily if need be without having to pry against the hot glue.

the car is due back any minute to do some more work on it, I'll post more pics when i have them.

[sefugi 166]

Awesome Work!!!!

[Mark LaFountain 1,054]

I have had a chance to hear this car in person before the rebuild, right before moving from AZ. Very nice sounding car, can't wait to see what John does with it...

[Ohjay 116]

Looking good, pretty cool idea with the tweeter pods

[Shogen 325]

looks like a good start...

[Handcrafted Car Audio 42]

Just wait, the end result of the tweeter pods is gonna be awesome!