front speaker troubles

[solditforajeep]

I got a bone stock 98 limted with the not so good infinity system. My front door speakers both seem to have blown but I dont think this could happen in the time ive owned it the last month. They crack and just sound horrible. The rear sound bar seems fine but still has horrible speakers. Is my best bet to take off the door panel and just see if its connections or are they probably just blown. How do you take the panels off, I havent looked at them yet but is it anything special or hidden bolts I need to worry about.

[anony91xj]

It's extremely easy. A couple screws and the panel just pops off...it's held in mostly with plastic clips. There are two screws in the armrest/handle, and one behind the interior latch. There may be another screw or two I'm missing, but I remember it's VERY easy. Once the panel is off, 4 screws right there hold the speaker in.

[Tim_MN]

Test the front speakers, they have a wire splice in the door hinge area that likes to fail. The speakers will work when they want to or will sound like static. Most people just run some new wires from the inside of the XJ to the speakers.

[jocko463]

Ditto what Tim MN suggested. All the door wiring goes through those black rubber accordians and, due to the flexing with opening and closing the doors (especially the drivers door), the wiring will sometimes break internally (as in you won't see anything wrong by just looking at the wire insulation). My drivers side speaker was rewired by the P.O. using clear 18ga lamp cord....works fine.

mike
00XJ

[DenLip]

My drivers side speaker was rewired by the P.O. using clear 18ga lamp cord....works fine.

Any help on "how far back" they rewired... and how accessible everything was? This is on my agenda for the weekend... but I don't know how big of a job it will be. Best-case, I suppose, is to pull the door panels and maybe the kick panels... everything will be accessible from there?

Den

[Timber]

The hardest part of rewiring them is getting the wires through the accordion-type grommet--and even that isn't hard.