If you are still using the original MGF front speakers, in an MGF, they are probably blown. Perhaps you may be very lucky but the original speakers in my example 1997 MGF are totally trashed from 25 years of use.
Fortunately, these are relatively easy to replace.
They are a standard 6.5 inch size so that should make it easy to find a replacement set of speakers. You may want to match these with any speakers in the T-Bar, if you have them. Obviously matching speakers is optional but may be worthy to consider.
Door Card Removal #
If you’ve ever taken off a door card before this won’t be very difficult. The general trick is to make sure you find all the screws that are holding the door card in place. The MGF is actually very similar to an MGB.
If you feel you need a guide, there’s a pretty good door card removal guide available on The T-Bar forum/website. This is for a early MGF (mark 1) and there may be slight differences for the mark II MGF and the MGTF.
As a simple summary, see below.
- Remove the 2 screws on the back edge of the door card that would be facing backwards with the door closed
- Remove the 1 screw on the top front edge of the door card. It is in a recessed part of the door card, easy to find
- Remove the 2 screws in the bottom of the door pull recess
- Remove the 1 screw that is slightly hidden behind the door opener. This goes through the plastic cover behind the door opener. Remove the plastic cover over the door opener
- Remove the multiple pop in clips along the front, bottom and back edges of the door card. approximately 7 or maybe 8 of these
- Carefully lift and pull backwards the door card and try to keep it parallel with the door as you remove it to avoid any damage to the window seal/top edge
Original Speaker Removal #
I was again fortunate to find a very good tutorial on The T-Bar forum so I didn’t have to figure this out for myself. You can read the speaker removal/renovation article on The T-Bar website. So, I will simply add a few additional pointers based on my particular experience and using the guide.
- I can confirm that a hair dryer should be able to provide enough heat to get the glue to a point you can remove the speaker from the housing
- The metal clips you pry back are part of the original speaker metal frame. You secure the new speakers to the plastic mount
- The plastic housing can be drilled with small pilot holes to help putting the screws in to hold the speaker into the plastic mount
- The existing speaker wiring uses standard connectors (small and large) that should fit onto your new speakers directly
- I did find that the speakers cause some vibration. I removed the speaker surrounds and added some rubber window seal material. Basically I insulated the plastic speaker mount from having direct contact with the metal of the door. Not perfect but this works very well
Hopefully the combination of information here will be useful with your project to update the MGF front speakers.
Other Materials #
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