My protege is nearly complete! Yesterday I had the windows tinted 28% all around and messed with the front speaker mounting a bit... that was interesting. I'll start from the beginning. The speakers I bought for the front are too deep for the windows to roll down all the way. While i was having the window tinted the guy was like "did you know your speakers are blocking the window? " so i told him yeah i knew but didn't care too much. Well he had the sound system guy come over and look at it (the tinting place is in the same building as Aspen Sound) and that guy said the windows were BARELY hitting the speaker and if I took off the stock speaker grille and mounted them over the interior door panel It would work out - plus I could use the speaker grilles that came with the speakers! Sounded good to me.
The window tinting wrapped up (looks REALLY good! $159) and I headed home to get right to work. I took off the stock grille and did all the mounting and stuff over the panel (still in the same spot, just a couple little holes drilled through did the job). It looked really good!! PROBLEM...The new speaker and grille stick out too far for the window handle (yes, no power windows)!! That's when I get this idea to bend the handle up so that it clears the speaker (it was soooo close!). How does one do that, you ask? BLOWTORCH! hehehe Don't worry i didn't blow myself or the car up. In fact, It worked perfectly! I got it nice and hot and a bit soft, bent it on the edge of my workbench and VOILA! Now it all looks great!
Unfortunately, I still have one little problem... The little scoop thing at the bottom of the door panel blocks 2 of the screw holes for the speaker. and it doesn't come off! With only two screws the speaker seems to be torqued weird somehow because it doesn't like to work! And when it doesn't like to work, none of the speakers work! It's pretty strange...I'm going to look at it tonight and maybe try and put a 3rd screw in or loosen the ones on top... I don't know, it seems to be really sensitive to the slightest bending pressure... Does anyone know about this at all? Anyway the car looks awesome and pics are coming soon

 

I also forgot to mention that I had the front CV boots and axels replaced by the Automotive classes at the local community college. $187 for the whole thing!

 

Sounds cool. Im kinda interested in the pics..Jon