What I learned repairing HK subwoofer

[Trademark1]

All,

This forum has already been a tremendous help to me in my 1 month of ownership, so thought I would start giving back and share a few items I learned while repairing my HK sub that were not evident in other threads I reviewed.

I used the Simply Speakers reform kit and am quite pleased with the results. Good product with good directions available on Amazon or their website. I did not end up getting the optional sealant - but did coat the new foam and paper cone with a wash I made with Mod Podge PVA glue diluted 50% w/ water.

First - on removal of the oddments box lid. It does lift straight up, but I am always worried about breaking brittle plastic. I did find far easier to pop the front first (two retainers) and then start working on the back. On my car the back is not really held by clips as I have seen otherwise reported, but really just straight tabs that have a small rubber-type piece of foam or tape on them to create a greater friction fit or some retention. See here:

C9816E37-E8EE-4D66-8667-E8948D790442.jpg

You can see the three slots that receive these here:

5F255E11-F592-4655-8272-4D9E5A5F7ECB.jpg

Speaker surround was a disaster as expected:

A416CF7E-AF0C-4EC5-A68A-B6A1949C0018.jpg

Unscrewing the box was easy, but disconnecting the harness was not obvious to me at first. I finally found it was easier to remove the plastic harness connector from the metal bracket before disconnecting the harness. This is done by rotating counter-clockwise 45 degrees. See attachment point on back of harness:

37F9B599-18E5-438C-A072-A8EF2B38AEB2.jpg

Even though my speaker surround had totally disintegrated, the plastic speaker gasket was still firmly attached to the metal speaker ring/ spider frame. I softened the adhesive with isopropyl alcohol and managed to pry off without breaking it. Probably a good idea to remember its orientation, but it is keyed.

070B4A31-8154-4F85-892B-4A5CACF31A27.jpg

I did not disassemble the speaker beyond this as the speaker frame was snuggly glued to box with a rubberized glue, but did gently blow/shake out curd that landed in the box.

Cleaned everything up per simply speakers instructions. I found a narrow woodworking chisel helpful, as well as plastic scrapers as they won’t get swayed by speaker magnets. This is the most tedious part. Re-glue and sealing very straight forward per directions. I used the same glue to re-attach the plastic gasket on top of the new foam surround. The finished product looks much improved and sounds as good as this thing can - acceptable to me for a noisy car with a great sounding engine anyway.

[Trademark1]

Finished Product

07053B2C-F930-42C5-8523-96E3712A4674.jpg

[Auto Parts Guy]

Very nice! I used silicone for my HK door speaker (ghetto i know but it worked). But this looks waaaaaaay better. Didn't even know it existed until now. Thanks for sharing!

[MORRIE]

Great job!!

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

[amancuso]

Nice job!

[Z3Dawg]

I did the exact same fix over the weekend on my new (to me) '02 roadster. I used the Simply Speaker foam replacement and how you laid it out is perfect! I did remove the speaker from the sub box to make sure I was able to clean it well. Agree that cleaning off the old glue and sealant is the most tedious part, but a good football game on in the background made the time go faster. The only issues I had were the same you pointed out. My box lid came off with some gently pulling. One of the plastic tabs was already broken off, so I made sure to not damage the other. Also, the wiring harness took some massaging to unhook from the car, and then disconnecting was easy. I did get the sealer, which I used on the new surround and also to attach the speaker back to the box to eliminate gaps. While I had it all taken apart, I vacuumed out the area for the sub since the disintegrated surround was all over the place. I also popped out the grill and gave it a good cleaning. Overall, the sound is decent, and it only cost $27 to repair. I'll take that over a few hundred any day.
0b3To%CnQT+LJw1vIjHi0g.jpgddhIcqkzSxqwD4A3nALPkw.jpg