Seat for a box
 

Situation, I have an 88 Burb with removable 3rd row seating and want to install a system. However, it will be parked in an area where I'll need to keep the system hidden for safety reasons. Does any know if a removable third row seat can be turned into a speaker box? If so, how difficult is th his to do?
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Re: Seat for a box
 

Tint the windows and never turn it up loud around your house has worked for me for years.

Re: Seat for a box
 

Yea My neighbor does the the same,I didnt kno he had a system forever...
His truck isnt the most secure so he dosent advertise it...

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one of my buddies has a newer burb..iirc like a 96 andways he removed the 3rd seat.. and went junk picking found a broken dresser.. then took the draw faces off the draws
and glued them to the dresser.. brock off a leg and removed a few of the draw pulls hardware and glued down the rest so it not rattle..
and this covered his box for years.. as anyone the looked in only saw a broken used up dresser.. worked like a charm

Re: Seat for a box
 

:lol::lol:

Re: Seat for a box
 

Plan B buy a shotgun and clean it on the front porch once a week works good too.

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hay you laugh.. he had the stock rims jacked, but not the audio

Re: Seat for a box
 

do shallow mount sub in tha back door(s)..a lil tint..color match tha grills to tha panels..folks would never know they where in there unless you turn em up.

Re: Seat for a box
 

I did eight 8" subs in the bench seat of an extra cab Silverado, you can do the same in the burb. The cover over the speakers was modified for more air flow, but it looked stock, as was the goal.

Re: Seat for a box
 

I don't know if this is what jimmydean was suggesting, but you could pull the cushion/springs out of the bottom of the bench and design a downfiring enclosure that mocks the bottom of the bench and just put a little padding and the upholstry over it. Won't be the most comfortable thing to sit on, but it'd never be you probably...lol

Re: Seat for a box
 

Yeah, the backseat of the Burb has never seen me... sooo I think I like the idea. What I also like about the idea is that if I need extra cargo space all I need to do is remove the seat, which will remove speakers at the same time.

Know where I might find any plans, diagrams or instructions on pulling this off?

Re: Seat for a box
 

Man...this sounds like a fun project! I don't have any plans/diagrams, but how different is the rear bench of a Burb to the rear bench of a Blazer? If they are the same (Mine is 1st gen though), I can measure mine out and get you some dimensions and designs.

In my mind, you would use all the existing mounts mounts, arm rests and what not and have the speakers downfiring. It'd be a fairly small box, so maybe 8's would be best...but if you invertered the speakers (considering there was enough room under the seat for the magnet) you could possibly get a set of 10's in there.

Re: Seat for a box
 

We actually built the box as the back of the seat with padding around the subs. The bottom would work as well. Our seat looked like a stock '88 extra cab bench, only the middle part was full of sound.

Re: Seat for a box
 

I'll take some measurements tomorrow (and pics to boot) so that you can get an idea of what I'm working with... however, I may run into problems with the subs as the ones I'm working with are a set of 12" Boss Audio 1200 watt subs. So if I can make em fit in the seat, somehow, the rear passengers will be a bouncing! LOL

Re: Seat for a box
 

Oh yeah...12" subs won't be the easiest thing to get in there and still retain the correct amount of volume required for those. Does the specs on the sub have a preferred amount of volume for a sealed enclosure?

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Not sure, I need to take them out of their current enclosure so I can look up some specific info... something tells me that the space in the seat will be highly insufficient.

Re: Seat for a box
 

I did a box for my buddies Bronco with 2 15" Orion XTR's. The box was on rails and fit behind the rear seat. If you flip the seat forward, you could slide the box forward to give you more "trunk" space. Worked out well. Just used some heavy drawer roller rails and floor mounted latches to lock it in place. Took all of a minute to unlock it, slide it, then lock it back down.

<edit> Or you could take it out all together if you needed to.

Re: Seat for a box
 

It would make for a very heavy seat and a semi-complicated design, but you could incorporate both the bottom of the seat and the back as the enclosure for additional volume...just a thought. However, with a speak with that rating, I'm guessing the overall depth is greater than average and fitting inside an enclosure that shallow may not be possible...

Re: Seat for a box
 

I like the idea, but my goal is to keep the speakers out of site as I regular park the Burb in an "iffy" area.

You hit the nail on the head... not possible. Darn. I had the seat out and one of the speakers out as well and took a few measurements.

Speaker: Full height 7 1/2" (top of cone-bottom of magnet) with a Diameter of 12 1/4"

Seat: Depth(including space under seat): Tallest point about 9" to a shortest point of barely 6"

Diagnosis - Darn....

So I guess it's time to explore other options now. If I had a car I would just leave them in the current box, hook em up and go on about my business.

Anyone have different ideas about how to hide a set of " Boss Audio RIP 220 DVC " subs in a Burb?

Re: Seat for a box
 

How about a box on the side maybe made to look like a tool or storage box.

ALL my stereos are pretty well hidden after my Toyota was stolen years ago. The only thing you will see in my truck is the door pod tweeters.

Re: Seat for a box
 

Hiding 2 12's as big as those is going to be a task. I like jimmydean's idea of making it look like a toolbox, or maybe even an ice chest.

Another option is to build a box that's 8" deep internally and build a false floor in the back. This would make the floor raised to about 11" or so depending of the Xmax of the speaker...may not be ideal but you'd never have to remove it to put stuff back there...just right on top of it.

Re: Seat for a box
 

Thanks for the input, I think I need to do a little investigating to see which would work best. Both sound good to me, however, the false floor, as I've been told, would be the harder of the two.

Were the false floor idea the one chosen, I would consider putting the false floor under the middle row of seats as the gas tank is under the floor in back.

Re: Seat for a box
 

Oh, I like the false floor idea!

In my 4Runner, I did a 10" on each side. I built out the sides a little, but it looked stock. There is a storage space on either side of the 4Runner ('88) and I built speaker grills that looked just like them (had the knob and everything). Nobody had any idea.

Re: Seat for a box
 

What kind of tools and materials will be required for a false floor job? Never done anything like this before so I have no clue how to even start.

Re: Seat for a box
 

Just think of a raised bed most guys (like I will be doing) do to cover the notch in the back and have a solid floor without the hump.

You could raise the whole floor of the Burb about 6" (or whatever would clear the back of the sub with a little room) then you mount the subs in the floor either in the corners, or along the side so you don't cover/hit them with stuff. You could do it smack in the middle to, just make sure you do some sort of a screen or grill.

My brother and I built an '88 SS truck that had 4 10" Nakamichi subs mounted under the truck in band pass enclosures with the ports running up into the floor behind the seat. It won IASCA 100W pro class Nats and was the first of its kind. Not the most practical, but it was cool as hell. Boxes only hung 1" below the frame (truck was a hot rod, not low and slow).

You can make it out of wood, then fiberglass it to make it weather resistant.

All I use on my builds are a table saw, jig saw, Dremel, and drill.

Re: Seat for a box
 

A false floor is simply a box that takes up the entire floor board and is built as shallow as possible to retain as much cargo space possible. You'd make a top plate that covers the entire box that's about 2" or so above the speaker to allow for speaker excursion, but the top plate would be the exact shape of the side panels to look like it's the floor...kinda like raising the bed floor when laying frame but doing it for a speaker box. You wouldn't need any special tools other than the typical box building tools.

In your situation with those speakers, your floor would be "raised" about a foot (7.5" speaker + 1" air gap between speak and bottom of box + 2" excursion + 1.5" of mdf). That's a lot of cubic space, but with that you could also mount your amps on the side of the box under the top plate so it's all hidden.

This probably still isn't the most ideal situation based on what your going for, but your speakers are a little limiting being so big.

Re: Seat for a box
 

If you use 3/4" MDF and mounted the subs on the under side, they shouldn't move THAT much to require a face board.

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Like a downfiring box? That makes total sense! I'd do 2 layers of 3/4" just be safe though.

Oh, and quit typing faster than me!!! Haha...

Re: Seat for a box
 

I was thinking up firing, just mount the subs on the underside. A double layer works. IIRC, the 18" Kickers I had were double front 3/4" and had plenty of excursion.

You could down fire them, too. I'm just not a fan of that style of mounting personally. Issues with down firing is you are making a large port out of the floor and unless you design it right, you could have tuning issues. I like to have my subs play into the open space the way god intended. :lol:

Re: Seat for a box
 

1)
Thanks to everyone for the suggestions, we finally installed everything and for now it'll be out in open. However, I have a kill switch that will be used to turn the subs off/on so that I at least turn them off a couple miles before getting to my destination.

2)
When I can afford materials and have time I do plan to create a false floor to mount the subs in, so you advice will still be taken to heart and used.

3)
I already have to fix something, I kinda sorta blew the dust cap off one of the subs whilst playing "Amish Paradise" by Weird Al... but the sub is repairable though, I just need super glue lol

Re: Seat for a box
 

Glad you got something hooked up at least! So...WHERE'S THE PICS?!!!!

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............. coming????? I'll be honest, we didn't document the whole undertaking and project as we re-used a lot of what was already there. By re-use I of course mean, "cut out all the confusing poorly put together mess and kept what was good to make the best of what I have." :lol:

I'll take some pics of the finished project tomorrow after my interview and a pic of the "wounded" sub lol

Re: Seat for a box
 

Here's how the system sounds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_ve7...ature=youtu.be

Re: Seat for a box
 

Sounds pretty good!

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Thank you, now if I could just get the pics resized you could see it too lol
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Re: Seat for a box
 

LOL...I use photobucket...it has a pretty simple resizing option.

Re: Seat for a box
 

i planning to put a sub(s) in a fake seat from my 88 conversion burb into my jimmy
but what about building a wood "fake" seat sub box
make it the size it needs high with a shorter back
maybe cover it the same as a seat,remove fake seat and install real one when needed
that way they could fire straight forward @you
and nobody knows.....
I love having a on/off switch on just the subs ,freaks people out

Re: Seat for a box
 

Finally got the "popped" sub fixed.. just got some impact resistant Locktite and it's good as new :metal:

Re: Seat for a box
 

In the late 90's and early 2000's I used to compete in dbDrag. I had a suburban back then with a sound system upwards of $30K. The best advise I give you is to tint your windows and never "Bump" your sound system near your house or near your destinations. I currently have an '04 Ram with a sound system upwards of $10K, non of my neighbors have the slightest hint of such a system. This is the best way to keep it that way. Don't advertise it.

Re: Seat for a box
 

Fortunately for me the windows came tinted and I have a kill switch for the subs alone. I usually shut them off well before I get to my destinations, I try to have them off before I get within a mile of any destination.