Leaf Speakers Replacements

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Brightonuk said:
About the factory connection, how do the OEM speakers connect are they soldered at the speaker pins with a male /female connector to the radio harness does anyone have a photo of the Harness connectors
Not sure if I'm answering your question exactly, but the factory speaker leads are soldered to the flag terminals at the rear of the connector body on the spacer ring. The factory harness in the door has a connector which mates with the one built into the spacer ring.
 
So can I de-solder the factory speaker harness at the speakers and solder those wires directly onto the new Infiniti tabs (Keeping the factory harness intact) or do I just need to cut the plug on the harness (coming from the radio) and splice in a new wire to the speakers?
 
The red (+) and black (-) wires which I installed onto the assembly shown in the image below connect the Infinity external crossover +- screw terminals to the correct polarity solder tabs on the modified "speaker spacer" ring. The old speaker voice coil wires were cut away from these terminals. You don't have to cut the factory door wiring harness at all, you just have to modify each speaker assembly to swap out the OEMs for the Infinitys:

completedassembly.jpg
 
So I installed my Infinity 6032si speakers today. It only took me 4 hours, mostly because I didn't glue in the new speakers.

The first thing I learned is that if you are using a putty knife to pry the switch trim plate off, be sure to use one that is somewhat stiff. Mine was too flexible and I could bend the handle upright without popping the fastener free. The photo below shows the clips at the back, on the right side, that we are trying to free.

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By contrast, the trim at the door latch is very easy to get off. I ended up using my screwdriver at the back edge to easily pry it out.

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Once I got the first speaker out, I noticed that they had almost the same mounted dimensions. Crutchfield sent me a mounting adapter, and another one came with the speakers, but neither of them matched up with the mounting holes in the door. Combined with the prior recommendation to mount the speakers flush with the factory grill, I also decided thet best thing to do was to cut the factory speakers out of thier housing and reuse it to mount the new speakers.

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The 6032's have a mounted depth of 2 1/8" The rears do not interfere with the glass at all and you could install something up to 5 3/4" deep if you wanted to.

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The fronts however will interfere with the glass and you only have 2 7/8" clearance.

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If you add the stock mounts, you will add 7/8" to both measurements.

I was impressed with Nissan's use of cables for the door lever and lock lever. The last car I worked on used rigid wire/rods and they were much harder to connect disconnect. By the second one I was flying thru attaching and detaching the interior door trim.

I'll let you know after a while if I notice much difference in sound quality.
 
I just noticed the small magnets in the factory speakers.. are they using rare earth magnets to keep the weight down?

BTW.. I just love that dark metallic red Nissan uses..
 
Thank you everyone for all the tips! I installed 2 pairs of the Infinity Kappa 62.9i's today, and it went pretty smooth, thanks to all of you. The sound is MUCH improved. The bass is much cleaner, less muddy, and I mostly appreciate how much more "presence" there is, with stronger midrange vocals and instruments. Definity worth the $145 total I paid on eBay.
 
There's 2 wires. I cut the OEM connector off with enough left should I ever want to replace them. Looking at the OEM speaker, with the cone facing up, the left terminal in the connector is positive. (on ALL of them) It's critically important to get the polarity correct so all speakers are in-phase, or it will sound horrible
.

Hi Phil
I am in the middle of switching out my speakers and I was wondering if you remember the color coding for the +/- I want to get this right the first time and I have desoldered the wires to the factoy plug (the female one on the speaker baffle) as I wanted to keep it as a P&P and am gonna solder the Infinitis to that plug.

I also did not think that glueing the Infiniti adaptor rings to the leaf extender rings was the best way at the surface on the Leaf extender rings is so thin I was going to use three 2" M6 bolts to hold the new speaker ring through the Leaf extender ring and to the door, any thoughts?


Thanks
Steve
 
The wire colors for the front speakers are on page 6, DeaneG's post. But, as mentioned, if you are using the existing speaker frames, with the plug receptacles, its really only important to always make sure the speaker positive wire is soldered to the same terminal as shown in the pictures, and the polarity will always be correct.
 
Ya thanks missed the caption.

Here are a few shots of the damping on my door it has taken me the best part of the day just on this door, figuring out how best to mount the speaker (if only there was an aftermarket spacer) and applying the FatMat as I have never installed damping before.

Biggest issue (applying the FatMat) is taking off the factory wiring harness clips that hold the wire to the door every one broke they may still work if not I will try to source them maybe NAPPA will have them.
I used a $5 harbor freight door removal tool kit which for 5 bucks is great.

Keeping the FatMat warm is the key as when warm it is supple and helps you mould it round curves but it sticks like superglue so you need to position it right before it touches the sheet metal.

I opted to do the inside as well (that is a challange)

The driver's door should be much easier now I have done one.
 

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Finished the fronts today the FatMat makes a world of difference it gives a solid sound when the door is closed, and I love the depth it gives the infinities if you are going to attempt swapping out the OEM speakers do yourself a favor and spend a few hours installing sound damping.
25' roll will do the front and back with some leftover I might add the left over to the floor sometime
I screwed up on the first speaker install I thought I had to gut the housing but you just need to trim the top as DeaneG shows in the photo. I used a dremmal to cut off the raised ring then just filled it flat and even.

I ended up having to add pieces of wood inside the housing to screw the speaker adaptor to on the one I gutted. It made the job so much harder, the second one went without a hitch I used the metal mounting flange that came with the Infinities.
Not sure why DeaneG used the plastic ones as the metal did not need any modification just screwed in I added weather stripping between the OEM housing and the metal adaptor ring so is it air tight
As I said the first one took all day (most of that time that was due to trying to figure out how to fix my mistake with the speaker housing I gutted), the second I did in about three hours including adding the FatMat.

If you attempt the damping getting the harness off the door is a bit of a hassle the first door I just yanked the clips and broke every one the second door I squeezed the backside of the clip to release them as you can get behing the inner door skin.
It is hard on the fingers but I got everyone out without breaking any.

When you add the damping start from one end and as you cover a hole where a clip is located I marked it otherwise you will never find them once the FatMat is on and you will never get it off again. also do not forget the two bolt holes that you removed the bolts from.

Gonna do the rears next weekend

Important Side Note:
If you disconnect the harness and start or drive your leaf (with the harness disconnected) you may end up with a flashing passenger airbag warning light I thought I had really messed up but many many thanks to Randy who turned me on to Malcolm’s post:

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=7544

This fixed the issue and everything looks good
 

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I am a little confused regarding the color coding for rears
Randys post states

Rear Left (+) Violet / Grey
Rear Left (-) Light Green / Grey

Rear Right (+) Light Green / Grey
Rear Right (-) Pink / Grey


Any pointers on which one for the 2012

left Rear
Red
Green

Right Rear
Purple
Green

Thanks
 
Just look at the stock speaker, IIRC positive is on the right if looking from the side with the cone facing up. Doesn't matter what colors as long as you are consistent here.

-Phil
 
If you were to change only the fronts, you'll need to match the existing wiring polarity on the rears. I forgot where I saw it, but there has been at least one incorrect post of polarity - use a 1.5v battery connected to the speaker to check, the cone moves out the front of the speaker for positive polarity.

See the photos in my posts for matching Infinity polarity to the stock speakers (felt tip pen marks I added) - all four factory speakers are the same.
 
Phil was correct, negative is on left from front of all factory speakers. The incorrect polarity was shown on another thread.
 
The left neg did not sound right I had no bass is there a way to check the polarity coming from the head unit with a volt meter.
Do we know the +/- color codes for the rear on a 2012?
 
If you get the polarity reversed on one speaker, and correct on the other, you will see greatly diminished bass. To check, simply use the balance/fader to select one speaker at a time and listen to music with a lot of low bass. If the bass gets louder with one speaker selected, you have polarity problems.

There is no easy way to meter the polarity from the head unit. Simply look at the OEM connectors and figure it out as described above.

-Phil
 
I thought a multi meter that can read milliamps may help, excuse my lack of knowledge here but the signal must have a value?

Guess I just have to pull the doors (again)
 
I'm still not sure why all this guessing is necessary? :? If you solder every speaker the same, using the same plug/connector configuration as stock, how can the polarity be wrong? Surely Nissan wouldn't wire them wrong.
 
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