W124 Front dashboard speaker replace

[neumo]

I have a 95 E200 W124 estate (2.2 petol automatic) & I would like to replace the 2 front speakers on the dashboard with some better ones. I have had the grills off easyly enough, after looking on a 2CD merc sevice manual I bought off ebay but it is unclear how you can take the old speakers out without having to take the steering wheel & dashboard off, as there are no small scews on the epeakers themselves.

Does anyone know if there is an easy way to do this without having to take the whole dashboard to bits, which is probably asking for trouble on a 11 year old car? It suggests that you undo one bigish bolt head but I dont want to do that unless I have to.

The bit in the manual is as in the picture (or link below)


I may try this on a similar W124 in the local scrap heap before I do it on my pride & joy; a top tip suggested by another memeber when I had a leaky sunroof problems.

 

[bolide]

The speakers are fixed in with a spring clip at the front. Just prize up the front edge and the speaker will pop out

MAC Audio, Blaupunkt and Rainbow make 11 cm speakers to fit the existing hole. You can even buy a pair at a dealership for about £30 / pair and I have to say they're not bad

Good luck finding speakers to fit or enlarging the holes. It's a tough spot to work in

Do a search and you'll find lots of info on the forums

Nick Froome
www.w124.co.uk

 

[grober]

HERES THE PICS http://www.mercedesshop.com/Wikka/W124Stereo

 

[Howard]

I fitted a set of Infinity Reference 10.5 cm in the fronts of mine ....

A bit of jiggling , and they fit a treat , sound nice too , not much bass but you aren't ever going to get much bass out of a 10 or 11 cm speaker ...

Good luck !

 

[jaymanek]

i fitted pioneer ones and im very impressed with them..

 

[neumo]

Thanks for you help on this one, the link to the http://www.mercedesshop.com/Wikka/W124Stereo sterio page was really usefull. I am off to give it a go now as it's my day off.

I have a set of Sony X-Plod 10.5 cm 100W speakers that I originally bought to go in the side panels of the back doors, before I fitted the larger lozange shaped Alpines into the rear pannels at the back. Hopefully they can be made to fit into the hole left by the original fron speakers.

 

[aka$h]

A pair of 4" Focal Utopia Mids will fit if you want top end, I used a glue gun to secure them.

 

[neumo]

Well I had this pair of 10cm Sony x-Plod speakers that I had in the rear doors before I put a larger set of Alpines in the rear boot flaps. I have now fitted them & they are a LOT better than the original Merc ones (which were OKI to be fair). I can now hear a lot more detail & even get a bit of bass from the front speakers now.

What I did was find a pair of Plastic framed front speakers from a W124 in a local scrapyard; took 3 cars to find them but it was a lot easier to cut the plastic than the normal metal framed ones. Then I cut out the front cones with a stanly knife, leaving the 1cm rubber band on the outer edge of the speaker rim. Then I just cut the plastic supports with a junior hacksaw & removed the speaker compoments. THis left me with a plastic ring, including the 3 push in metal connectors, which had a nice padded rubber ring on the inside of the rim to hold the new speakers. Next I just cut down the plastic ring that stood up above the main plastic ring in 4 places, so the new speakers fit flush with the main ring. Then I drilled 4 small holes & screwed the new speakers into the plastic ring. You need to use short screws that do not stick out underneath the plastic ring. Then all you do is connect up the speakes & push the whole thing into the hole in the dash; because the new speaker sits in an original merc speaker assembly it fits perfectly, si I can have them out if I want to & no glue is needed. It sounds more complicated than it is but hopefully you can see from the photos what I did. Hope this helps someone out.

 

[jasohal]

I replaced mine with Rainbow's both front and rear - much better sound and quality.

Best part was they were exact fitment including the spring clips.

Just my two pennies worth !