117 THANK YOU SANTA...

Jolly ole Saint Nick has played a blinder this year; he emptied his sack and delivered some tools I would never have needed if we hadn't decided to make this mad trip across Europe.  

I am now the proud owner of a cordless drill, a plethora of bits for said drill and a toolkit containing all manner of plastic tools designed to prize and cajole internal car panels into submission so they can be removed without too much damage.  Also, an Amazon gift card from my boss has paid for a rivet gun!

So why all the tools?  There are a couple of issues that I want to look at myself, the main one being the speakers in the back, which sound like elephants fart anytime there is a bit of bass in a song - not ideal.  The problem is, to change the speakers, I need to perform open car surgery, which is where the tools come in.

First, we need to remove the rear seats to change the rear speakers. Then we unbolt the seatbelts (this bit makes my teeth itch), unscrew and pry off the plastic body panels, drill out the rivets holding the speakers, and carefully disconnect all the cables.

The new speakers can then have the connectors reattached and tested, and then they can be offered up to the bodywork and riveted back in place.  After that, the panels can be put back and screwed in, then the seatbelt bolted back to the body, and we are good to go…on that side!  The whole process needs to be repeated on the other side.

The front speakers aren't such a faff, but it still needs the body panels unscrewing and prizing off, the old speakers drilling out of their rivets, the new ones testing, and then repeating the process in reverse for each side.

I would typically throw money at this job and ask someone to do it for me. In this case, I'm looking forward to trying a bit of DIY. I spoke to my father-in-law about it, and he started giggling, as he knows how 'that'll do' I can be. At the very least, it should give him a laugh!