MGF speaker improvements for the early MGF cars, such as my 1977, are not too difficult. It’s likely they are badly need, especially if the in door speakers are originals. It turns out mine were indeed bad, but no longer!
Front Door Speakers
I do like my music while I am driving, so I had planned in advance of getting my car for some MGF speaker improvements. In fact, to make the journey back from Canada pickup bearable, I had a new head unit installed. This did help but the door speakers were in bad shape. The sound was terrible and it turned out the speakers were factory originals.
As part of my research I established the size of the door speakers (6.5 inches) from various forums online, including The The-T-Bar.com. On this site there are many good “How To” articles. There was specifically one for the door speakers and replacing them which I found really helpful!
I got some replacement speakers from Best Buy (Kicker CSC65). They were the same price as my usual go-to source of Crutchfield.com, even with taxes, and were available within a couple of hours. Perfect, I could tackle this the very next day!
Removal of the door card was similar to most cars, a couple of screws and removal of the inner door handle cover and door pull. That gave access to the speakers and with them removed from the car I began removal from the mount. As the super instructions noted, the originals are glued into the mount. A hair dryer was enough heat to get the glue melting and the speakers could be pried out.
By pre-drilling some pilot holes into the plastic mount, the screws with the new new speakers were easy to use. The new speakers were quickly into the mounts and reattached to the doors. I could re-use the existing wiring and a quick test confirmed success! Yay!
Adding Rear Speakers
Another element of my MGF speaker improvements efforts was rear speakers. I knew my car didn’t have them in the T-Bar behind the seats. It seems some MGF cars had this (potentially the VVC [Variable Valve Control] models). It was also available on the later MG TF cars.
Learning from others, I sourced a T-Bar in the UK via eBay. This had the interior T-Bar cover with speaker grills as well as the actual mount with original MG speakers installed. I was able to bring this back to the USA as a piece of luggage on a trip. So, I am happy that it made it without damage. The transcontinental trip showed no issues. However, as often seems the way, the domestic Chicago-St. Louis leg it seems that the unit took enough of a bash to knock the magnetic off the back of one speaker! Still as these were to be replaced, not a big issue.
Rear Speaker Choice
The speakers are relatively small. You will need some 4 inch by 6 inch speakers and pay attention to the specific dimensions. The hole in which they mount is tight and you may have clearance issues. I selected some Kicker 47KSC4604 speakers from Crutchfield.
These had a slight fitting issue being a little snug. But, I was able to get them to seat properly without cutting anything by using the fitting screws to squeeze them down into the holes. The wiring connectors to the speakers wasn’t great with the stock fittings. I used the wires provided with the speakers and spliced things into place for reliable connections. So, I then worked to check the wires for positive/negative and left/right by a bit of trial and error. With this complete, the sound T-Bar was ready to install in the car.
Rear Speakers Installed Into the MGF
As I would quickly discover, although this looks straight forward, there is one complication. I had not thought through the fact that the seat belts pass through the T-Bar. What does this mean? Well, you will need to detach the seat belts from the seats. When I realized this, I knew the job was going to take a bit longer!
The removal of the cover was pretty easy after removing the 3 tonneau cover screws/fittings across the top of the T-Bar. With these removed the plastic cover can be pulled loose. Some prying may be needed to get the locator posts to separate. With direct access tot the metal bar underneath, removal of the 4 bolts was easy.
The new metal bar with speaker pods is a direct fit replacement for the original. It is held in place by re-using the same 4 bolts the original used. As part of the car preparation, my seller had kindly installed some wiring for me so that was all done. This is when the seat belt conundrum hit me!
The Seat Belt Issue
Having realize the seat belt issue, it was time to solve it. I went out to a store and bought a T50 torx bit that would be needed. However, I quickly realized there was not enough space to just remove the seat belt bolt from the seat. The space between the bolt head and the side of the car is maybe 2 inches. So, it is immediately clear that the seats would need to be loosened or potentially removed to gain access.
Because I would need to disconnect the SRS cables under the seat, I disconnected the battery. Don’t mess with anything SRS related without disconnecting the battery before you start! There are 4 seat bolts and these are also T50 torx bolts. I removed all 4 bolts and could twist the seat enough to have access to the bolt holding the seat belt to the seat.
With the seat belt disconnected from the seat, it was relatively easy to get the seat belt through the T-Bar cover. There is a metal cover plate protecting the hole in the plastic that can be a bit fiddly to remove. It’s 2 screws and a backing plate.
With the seat belts now passing through the new T-Bar cover the fit of this was complete. Obviously, putting the seats back and getting everything bolted down took a while.
The End Result
With the rear speakers connected to the head unit they certainly complete the sound. Having sound behind your head and from the doors allows me to enjoy my music, even with the top down.
