To add to my post of installing my audio upgrade from a few weeks ago, here's an update.
So, after many hours trying to work out problems (reading more internet forums, having a chat with GLIDN from this forum (thanks for your time, you sound like you're busier than ever) pulling my car to pieces even further it is all complete.
Prior to my last post I had also sorted out the mounting of the the tweeters inside the original mounts. Despite all my machining and keeping everything looking well made, at this point I did what most people at this point do. I used silicone sealant to hold in the tweeters. The Morel speakers had lots of different housings for the tweeters to suit different cars so I modified some that best fit the Mk5.
It's a bit hard to see in the photo but the mounts are slightly angled so I trimmed them in such a way so that I could mount them so they were angled more towards the front of the car. I then siliconed the whole assembly in place after wiring it to the factory plug.
Without being able to properly get everything working while I was having a problem with the right woofer I removed the door wiring loom as I suspected it may be the source of the shorting to find this:
None of the wires appeared to actually be broken, only the insulation, as pulling hard on them didn't pull them apart. So I just put some heat shrink on them and reassembled it.
Unfortunately this still didn't fix the problem. So I turned up some plastic spacers to go between the aluminium mounts and the speakers and bought some nylon screws to attach them.
Meanwhile, my RCA leads and AudioControl LC2i line out converter arrived so I set about installing them too. Here's where things went from bad to worse. There is next to no room to install the LC2i along with the double DIN radio but I found I could just squeeze it in on the lower side if the frame that houses the radio and Climatronic controls. So I drilled a few holes in the frame and bolted it in place.
I cut into the front speaker wires just after where they start from the plug that goes into the radio. Here's where I made a critical error. I put the speaker wires coming from the amp to the plug going into the radio. Then the wires that go off to the crossovers and onwards to the speakers, I connected to the LC2i. So not only did I not get any signal going to the LC2i, I fed amplified power into the radio. It didn't pop the fuse in the radio and while I was trying to figure out why things weren't working, the radio got rather hot just behind the plug and started smoking. I unplugged it as quickly as I could, but the damage was done. RIP one RCD510. :'(
Not wanting to kill another expensive radio, I bought a jap import RCD310 off trademe (NZ version of eBay) for the grand total of NZ$29. Plugged it in, checked to see if it got hot behind the plug and sure enough it did. Another radio bites the dust. I was getting rather demoralised at this point. Systematically checked what I'd done so far and then realised my error. Unsoldered my wrong wires and then connected them up correctly. Plugged the radio back in and still nothing. >:( Turns out the damage was already done to that radio but I wasn't sure at that point. Went back to the trademe seller and got another RCD310 since they were so cheap. Plugged it in and it worked! Relief.
But being a jap import the radio frequencies are not in line with what NZ uses so the only radio station I could get was MaiFM.
Let's just say it's not my cup of tea. So I had to dig out my trusty CDs.
Even though it was working (and the woofer in the right door was now working too even though I hadn't installed my plastic spacers or bolts???) it was not working properly. The amp would go into protect mode at only about 1/3 volume. More research, thinking about the advice I'd got from GLIDN and suggestions from the Morel rep I tried a few things.
I removed the amp from it's mount as several places had said it shouldn't touch the vehicle body via metal anywhere except through its power and ground wires. That wasn't it.
At this point I changed a bunch of things. The LC2i was getting power and ground from the amp. I changed that so it was getting it from the cigarette lighter and added an inline fuse. (To be precise, I loosened off the clamps holding the wires to amp and tried to pull out the wires for the LC2i. The amp ground wire became a bit loose too, gave off a nice big spark and blew the 50 amp fuse in the engine bay!) I unbolted the amp ground wire where I had grounded it, scratched off the clear coat from the base of the stud and put the amp ground against that rather than the existing wire that was grounded there.
I had the amp set to signal sensing turn on. I changed that and ran a wire from the LC2i to the amp and changed the amp setting to remote turn on. I couldn't check anything at this point though after I'd blown the fuse. I ordered the only 2 left in stock in Auckland the next day (Friday morning) and was able to pick them up that afternoon.
Best of all (but surely having no effect on the previous problem), I installed an RCD330 plus that I'd ordered from Aliexpress on Monday night that arrived on Friday morning too. And everything worked as it should.
Plenty of volume, no going into protect mode and it all sounded good.
Using the RCD330 plus gave me extra room to install the LC2i so I stuck it to the underside of the radio using adhesive backed velcro.
I ran all the wires neatly and attached them hopefully for the final time.
Fiddled with the different settings on the amp and LC2i until it was where I liked it best and then re-assembled everything.
I'd already refitted the door cards and found that I had to reposition the left crossover slightly to fit the door card on along with trimming the foam speaker enclosure. There really isn't much room but luckily the Morel crossovers are quite slim.
Went from this:
to this:
So in the end, all's well that ends well, right?
At least it sounds good.
It all went back together properly.
I can still use my steering wheel controls (Mk6 wheel with supporting mods).
It all looks completely stock from the outside and I now have Apple CarPlay as a bonus.
There's also a lot less road noise with all the sound deadening that I installed in the doors.
Would I do it all again? Yes, as I learnt a lot along the way and my soldering skills improved immensely along the way.
