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In this Discussion
- 48Sed January 8
- barrysweet52 January 6
- DocHubler January 13
- duncan January 5
- James P. January 12
- Joe30Essex January 6
- Ken U-Tx January 13
- onerare39 January 11
- Ric West IN January 12
- SuperDave January 7
- Tallent R January 5
Installing the stepdown rear speaker option
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I installed the rear speaker option as per the factory instructions and my back is paying the price.There are a lot of holes to drill and that trunk space is small lol
I connected up the wiring and turned on the radio waited forever for it to warm up in the cold and enjoyed the music from the rear. -
Before I put in the head liner I ran a couple of wires along the roof channel along with the tail light wires in case I would install the speaker at some point.Glad I did then as it was easy to connect it up.I am using the factory switch in the dash as well so you can have both speakers or either front or back going.
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Here is what I did in the '54 Jet. The Jet had a 6 X 9 spot in the metal for a rear speaker. Cut the pattern in the shelf with a RotoZip tool. Made a pattern out of 1/4" wood, cut two circles for 4" speakers. The speaker unit is held in place through the holes in speaker grill.
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The air operated drills are much smaller than the electric drills and would make the job easier for a lot of jobs on our Hudsons.
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My '50 C8 came with a rear speaker that was installed many decades ago. I personally think that it could have been installed at the dealership because this car had every thing that they could pile onto it. The wire to the speaker ran under the floor mats and entered the trunk behind the rear seat. As you look at the pictures you'll notice that the underside of the speaker was nested in brand new soft body shop rags and is shielded by a tin can like piece. It seems that the installer was intent on not letting any of that precious sound leak out. The tin can is actually an old potato chip can that's been sliced down the middle from top to bottom. (Before potato chips were packaged in bags, they were sold in large, perhaps a gallon and half sized tin cans). I came across a picture of an identical can and included a picture of it. The tin half-can was then painted gray or gray primer. Some prior owner of the car removed a lot of the dash components, so I have no ides what the original rear seat speaker switch looked like. Do any of you know what a correct switch looks like? Here's a few pictures of it.
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One problem the installer was probably trying to prevent was speaker cone "blow out". When the trunk lid is slammed shut and the gasket seal on the lid is functional.. The compressed air in the trunk could damage the speaker cone.. and that works in reverse too..That seemed to be a problem back in the day.
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Interesting, that thought had never occurred to me. I also meant to mention the carefully made little wooden spacers between the speaker and the body. Perhaps they were needed for height, but I don't see why. Maybe they were installed to isolate the speaker from the body, but there again, I'm not sure that I understand the need.
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48Sed, you may well be right. In all of my decades of messing around with old cars, I simply never heard of speaker "blow-out" from slamming the deck lid. I could well have had cars that had bad rear speakers and simply blamed it on age. I'm still wrapping my head around the concept. It's sort of laughable, but all of the rusty Minnesota Hudsons I used to drive when I was young had plenty of places for compressed air to escape.
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Do you remember looking at the rear pillar of a 4 door and seeing a black plastic vent looking thing on GM cars for sure,that allowed air to escape when you shut the door so as not to compress it.I think also it allowed air to escape when using the heater/AC so air would flow and not just pressurize the cabin.
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Wasn't the air venting on the floor just above the differential? It was on the pre-war and 46-47 cars. There was a filter unit that fit in the floor and allowed air flowing from cowl vent and windows to "flow" through the vehicle and exit (front to back), thus allowing constant fresh air to circulate through the vehicle. Probably very important with older cars and the potential for carbon monoxide leaks into the cabin, not to mention the odors from fuel or fumes from engine crankcase. Now I have to go back and look at my stepdown to see how they did this. All modern cars have this, but the vents are usually in the door jambs so you can more easily close the doors as modern cars are more air tight than the old cars -- I mean really how many small leaks do you have through the firewall due to old grommets, rust holes, and other alterations that have holes drilled through not to mention leaky door seals and windows? My 1967 Toronado has the air flow through vent located on the rear package shelf (not in door jambs), and the actual vent louvers can be seen below the rear window on the exterior of the car (same on 67-69 T-Birds). At any rate, I don't think there is any old Hudson that is so airtight that it could damage the speaker by closing the trunk, even rapidly closing it -- you cannot compress that volume of air appreciably to cause any damage to the car components, and who slams their decklid shut anyway? The package shelf has many holes and the air pressure easily dissipates through those channels and around the cardboard and upholstery of the package shelf and won't "blow out" the speaker -- which is meant to vibrate to create sound anyway. I think the wood pieces described above were to replace a cardboard spacer, and the cardboard dissipated some of the vibration from the speaker onto the package shelf, which might otherwise be irritating to rear seat passengers.
I also put my rear speaker wire along the top headliner rail with the turn signal wiring. Dealer installed would have clearly routed wiring under carpet/rear seat. Not sure how many of these were installed from the factory, if any. I have a 1950s era speaker switch (not stock Hudson) that I installed in mine for front/rear/both speakers -- a common after market item at the time. I did use a Hudson knob on the unit though. -
Just adapt a Hudson knob, brilliant!
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I posted some pictures of the Rear Speaker Kit over here...
follow the link!
http://www.hetclub.org/index.php?option=com_kunena&view=topic&catid=18&id=176&Itemid=594
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Neat to see an authentic Hudson rear speaker kit! I couldn't see the speaker selector switch. They did have a shroud for the speaker; wonder if there are pre-drilled holes in the package shelf for those?
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Tim,
The speaker selector switch is sitting on the original paper bag, and the partial shroud is sitting to the left of the speaker. The instructions state that you need to drill 28 holes for the brougham and 24 holes for the club coupe. The paper sacks containing the small parts were stapled shut and had never been opened.
John Forkner -
Guys, I'm puzzled by something, I don't understand what the holes are for. My deck shelf (see the above pics) has a normal oval opening, much as you would expect to see in any '50s or '60s car. Are you talking about a deck shelf that doesn't have that type of opening? When you talk about drilling 28 holes, I have to think that you are referring to holes to allow the sound to pass through. Is that the case?
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48-49's didn't have the speaker mounting hole. Deck stamping included speaker hole from 1950 up.
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Here's a picture of my dash. The speaker knob is right below the radio, above the heater. Wires routed to the radio above and to the right up and along the headliner rail. I know my 1950 had the package shelf all set up for a rear speaker as Ric states above, so that was actually simple to put it in. I'm thinking the shroud helps direct more of the sound into the car interior rather than just in the trunk area.
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Doc , that's a nice three spoke Deluxe steering wheel in that Pacemaker. Is it recast, restored, or original? I think the shroud around the speaker in the trunk is an half hearted attempt to prevent damage to the exposed speaker by stuff being shoved into, or moving around in the trunk. Note how bashed up the metal can shroud is in the earlier photos.....food for thought, eh??
