Alright, this took me forever working on and off. At any rate, I'm all done, it is installed, though not hooked up, yet, so I don't know how it sounds.
Basic premise is this. I wanted it in the footwell, but I wanted to keep the spot where my feet went available, and I wanted to be able to have the carpet stay. As many of you know, the steering cable is in the way as you go back. I have a spreadsheet that was used to make sure I had adequate volume for hte box (Wetsounds recommends 0.90cf). I think I inserted comments to make it somewhat usable by others, but I didn't plan on that as I went so it may take some deciphering. I have tried to attach it, but an Excel document isn't allowed. Not sure of another way to do it, I guess if someone wants it, PM me and I'll get it to you.
First thing I'm going to say is do NOT use MDF. It is junk. My box went together with glue just find. Until the screws went in. Yes, I should have drilled, but plywood doesn't push apart liek MDF.
So what I did was this. I cut the fotwell at an angle, from the bottom where the snaps for the carpet are to the top where it bolts to the fiberglass. I then put a panel in there, and built a box on the back of it, and another box on the front. Box on the back of that panel was pretty straightforward. The front was another matter. The whole thing is attached to the fiberglass via some triangular brackets. I plan to support it underneath so the stress won't crack the fiberglass. Here's a shot before the footwell is back in (on edit, it not even screwd in place, it sits higher up, I thought I had a shot of that, but I guess I don't):
The front of the box I decided to make like a pyramid with teh top cut off. You can see the beginnings of that here:
So far, so good, right? Wrong. My stupid ass assumed I'd be okay at 12", but the flange was wider. So if you do this, BEWARE. Here's what that looked like:
So to fix that, I built a "crown" around the top of it. So now the top box is getting incredibly complicated, but it is what it is. So here is what it now looked like, and the good news is that doing it this way gave me a little more volume (meaning less protrusion rearward where the steering cable is):
Alright, that was the hard part. Rear part was easy.
Now, heads up. If you do a pyramid, it takes some carpentry skills and know how. If you've ever put on crown molding, you know that the compund angles are all over the place. And it is pretty straigthforward for a 45 degree spring angle, but not a 60. Here is a helpful link that will help you wiht that:
http://www.altereagle.com/5_How_to_insta.htmlSo after I built the box, I coated it with fiberglass resin, then Herculiner (a DIY bedliner you can but at any auto parts store). For the front of it, I basicallly upholstered it a bit. Layered a few layers of padding then wrapped vinyl around it. Had to sew the top part because of the shape of the pyramid. And of course, that shape was lost when I upholstered it because of the crown I added, ah, well. I did the pyramid in vinyl, laid down the vinyl on the base board, then screwed them together. I did not attach the vinyl to the base board, yet, so I could attach the rear box. I then attached the rear box, then finished upholstering that board. I should have waited to put the support brackets on until now, but I didn't, so it isn't clean in that area. Howeve,r that is not seen once installed. I should point out that the reason I upholstered it was so tha tit would form to the shape of the cuts on my footwell.
Here are a few more pictures of it:
There are a lot more pictures in my Photobucket album if you want more detail:
http://s569.photobucket.com/albums/ss136/67King/Boat/
