1973 XR-7 convertible with factory AC. Want to replace stock radio with modern digital. The car has only door speakers. Does anyone know if there is room for a center dash speaker? If so, would a 5" x 7" speaker be the size?
There are speaker grill holes but the car came equipped with only door speakers. Would like to install dual center dash speaker along with new radio. Because it’s a convertible, probably won’t hear much even with 4 speakers at highway speeds but want to travel with car and need clock display, seek and scan and signal strength of a modern radio.
5X7 is the correct size, there is a mount point for a single speaker in the middle of the dash pad. I just happened to pull my Radio & speaker out last weekend.
Check out http://www.turnswitch.com/
Turnswitch offers repair or conversion for you stock radio. They have some very nice speakers. I just had my stock radio restored at Classic Car Radio Service. (Excellent Work). I replaced my door speakers with Turnswitch speakers they sound great.
You could use the dash center speaker for a CB radio and then maybe upgrade the door speakers for the radio. One gotcha that I ran into when upgrading speakers in another vehicle was that the newer ones were much more powerful then the originals and I needed to get an amplifier in there to make them audible, otherwise nothing but a whisper played out.
Extremely limited clearance. Less than 2" depth at center of opening. Ford anticipated a 5 x 7 speaker here but filled the location with hard duct work for the AC and defrosters. Ordered RetroSound R-57N speaker that is dual tweeter with single cone and less than 2" deep. Will have to fabricate bracket to install. Will take photos and post here when done.
Bottom line: Easy to remove dash panel but tough to fit speaker.
