Ive got a 68 Beetle without any sort of speakers/tuner so I went and bought some. To get the best sound (And because of practical limitations) Ive decided to mount these speakers in the vacancy behind the back seat set on top of MDF. My question is thus: How would I get the MDF to fit snuggly against the top of the back seat and the rear of the chassis?
As a side note, what would be the best way of sound-proofing my Beetle (dual Kadrons get REALLY noisy)?
Thanks for any and all help.

i dont know how the back of the beetle is set out...so i cant really be specific...but could you form cut the mdf to follow the contour of the car..then straight for against the seats....cut your holes for the speakers... fix it down with countersink bolts and use foam tape from bunnings between the car and the mdf....carpet the lot....and when the back seat goes in...the seat could sit against the carpet....
hope that helps...like i said...dont know the beetle..

jonno

Great question E cause i have exactly the same problem and was going to do more or less what jonno suggested. i thought of some how locating/buying the attachment i had on my ex hyundai that held the same rear dash in place, it was a sort of snap lock and bolt system where the mdf equivalent on the hyundai had the female part and the body of the car had the male and when they met it sort of snapped into place.
My idea was to search for a similar system and attach one onto the mdf and the other onto the back of the rear seat, hinge the mdf to the rear of the car (or if the curve was too gr8, reverse the situation with the hinge and snap locks) and go from there.
I don'[t know if any of that makes sense but i know how it fits having seen my hyundais system, i get lost in the translation, if you can check out a hatch somewhere, that may give you a visual and go from there. it'll be a while till i rig up my system and once done, i'll let you know how it went....or didn't.
ned

Ive kinda got a shelf/box built for the back which sits between the seats and the chassis.
its simple but effective. ive seen some amazing speaker/sub boxes/shelves for bugs, but they all do the same thing.

if you want i can take some pics and email them to you if you are stuck for ideas.

A rear parcel shelf for a bug is easy to fabricate. Determin how deep your speakers will be first. Then based on this depth, I made the template from thick cardboard - just cutting a rough shape, then 'fitting' it to one side to form a snug fit to the side around the wheel arch at that specific height from the bottom of the 'vacancy' behind the rear seat. Then I measured the distance across the back of the seat and the distance across the panel under the rear window. From the shape of the template from the one side of the 'vacancy' just reverse it and use it for the other side as well - tracing it onto a board of MDF. If your pedantic, you'll have to pay attention to the bevel of the board to the interior of the 'vacancy' too... then cut some supports to go under the shelf you made to clear the speakers from the bottom of the 'vacancy'... easy! (?)

A friend suggested using some chicken wire to mould a shelf. He was talking about making it out of fibreglass, but you could mould it out of chicken wire then draw around it onto some cardboard, check the fit then cut it out of MDF.

I'd stick with MDF - it's much more solid and that's what you need for a decent audio system. Look at what normal speaker boxes are made from - heavy, dense MDF or similar...

just my 2c..

[Edited on 11-9-2004 by oval TOFU]

if u get some nice flat speakers...u can do what we did and put them in the sides. Sounds good and i guess u could put in a riser if u wanted a bigger speaker.

Just makes it a little hard to get the back seat in and out.

hmm its not very difficult. honest.

i have one that was made. up. and u dont need thin speakers in the back side panels. use spacers like i have. put seat in first then speakers in.

ill go downstairs now and take some piccys of my box that i have behind back seat. and the speakers i have mounted in the back panels.