greenhell

Hello all. Just found this forum. Thank goodness. I've got a 97 Ford Explorer 2Door and have had it for a couple of years with no problems whatsoever. I love it.

The only thing that has been an issue is the stereo. I want to replace the speakers and the sub woofer in the back but how in the he77 do I remove the door panels to gain access to the speakers? For a few years now I've wanted to replace the speakers but get discouraged every time I make an attempt to remove them. Reason I want to replace them is that the front speakers keep shorting out. I didn't even know there was a subwoofer until one day I was driving and the sub woofer will kicked in and scared the he77 out of me. And then it shorted right back out

Any help is greatly appreciated! Pics of door panel would be AWSOME!!!

KU40

if it's like my '96 there are just two screws in the middle of the door, then take off the mounting plate that is around the door handle. then you pop out the little plastic 'screws' that are all around the outside of the door (there are probably 10 or so of them, you'll have to pull fairly hard but don't worry about breaking them, just pull evenly on either side). Then lift the whole door panel up to get it out of the window well. You'll then likely have to undo the wiring harness for the power locks and windows.

Getting the speakers out is no biggie, just have a couple screws. The speaker wires, as usual, are mounted to the speaker with a harness so you'll probably have to just cut the harness off. When I did it the color of the speaker wires in the door didn't match any that were behind the deck and I couldn't find any correct wiring diagrams online to match up the wires. So I decided to just run new wires (getting them through the doorjam is a big PITA), but I was going to anyways since I have all aftermarket stuff and all my speakers are amped.

the subwoofer I don't know about since mine doesn't come with it. Unfortunately, if you have a sub, I assume you have premium sound? You'll have to find the factory amplifiers and bypass them if you are putting in an aftermarket deck too.

greenhell

Thanks for the help. I appreciate it. Not sure about the premimum sound? I do have the 6 disc CD changer. Maybe it's not a subwoofer but it's a bigger speaker than the 6x8's that are installed in the doors and the rear passenger seats.

Russ1wat

If it's like my '91, it has an amp inside the rear panel on the pasenger side just in front of the sub. My sub did the same thing as you explained, I just took the sub out and replaced it with my box that has two 12s and I haven't had any problems out of it. It has decent sound but it's not very high wattage.

greenhell

Thanks for the tip. I'll look into that.