will the 96-98 gt tweeters work in a 97 SE and wheel control questions? [Archive]

tosun28

10-15-2006, 03:46 PM

Maybe I missed the two questions that I have here, but I did try the search, if I did I am sure that someone will point it out and if so thank you very much.

(1) I have the 97 SE with the factory am-fm-tape with slide bass and treble, I just got a factory cd player for it with the EQ, now can I add the mirror mounted tweeters to my car? Is it like most of the older gm’s and the wire harness is already installed “I hope :)”
(2) I want the Radio controls on the wheel as I am used to that from years of my import driving days, is the wiring already there for this or am I just wanting to much on that? If its not there how hard is it to route the wire up thru there for that feature?

I still hope that GM build them like they used to build them, I recall all my Fieros if it didn’t have a item, the wires was there just add the item and plug in, well all but the motor and trans, if you got stuck with Tech four and wanted a v6 was a little more work than the typical plug and play feature

I really wanted to get a slave tape for my car as I have seen in some post that some our cars had them, I found one here local for 15.00 with the wire, but they don’t have the trim for it :(

Anyone know of anyone who has trim for this remote/slave tape deck?

Thanks for any help

Donnie

MantaGreen97

10-15-2006, 10:01 PM

Originally posted by tosun28
Maybe I missed the two questions that I have here, but I did try the search, if I did I am sure that someone will point it out and if so thank you very much.

(1) I have the 97 SE with the factory am-fm-tape with slide bass and treble, I just got a factory cd player for it with the EQ, now can I add the mirror mounted tweeters to my car? Is it like most of the older gm’s and the wire harness is already installed “I hope :)”

The factory sail panel tweeters aren't hard to install. However I'd recommend replacing the door speakers with an aftermarket component set and foregoing the factory tweeters altogether. If you have the tweeters already and you want to install them though, it's not hard. The factory tweeters used a inline passive crossover (a simple capacitor--6dB/octave slope) wired in parallel with the 4x6 in the door. Cars with the tweeters had the wires and capacitor soldered directly to the 4x6. Cars without the tweeters may have had a connector on the 4x6 instead. Either way all that's required is the tweeters and the housings and the capacitors and they are simple enough to wire up :)

Originally posted by tosun28
(2) I want the Radio controls on the wheel as I am used to that from years of my import driving days, is the wiring already there for this or am I just wanting to much on that? If its not there how hard is it to route the wire up thru there for that feature?
I've done this exact same "mod" on my car (and used a Soundgate interface to connect the controls to my aftermarket HU). You will need the following for this changeover and you may decide it's too complicated once you hear what's involved.

First off the airbag with the controls is actually physically different. The controls themselves can be separated from the bag, but they cannot be installed on a non-controls airbag because of the difference. So you'll need a new airbag, equipped with controls. Airbags are easy enough to obtain, I actually ended up getting two of them with wheel controls, I still have one left over sitting around...

Secondly the airbag coil (aka clockspring) on cars without the controls do not have the additional wires for the redundant stereo controls. So you have to get the clockspring from a car with stereo controls. To replace the clockspring you have to remove the steering wheel but that isn't so hard. Acquiring the clockspring is probably the hardest part as you'll either be paying the expensive price for one (around $80 US) or try to find one cheaper somehow. I kept a search going on eBay for over a year before I finally found a NIB one, at a really discounted price :)

The good part is that the clockspring for a car with controls was used on several GM vehicles, the bad part is that it's still not easy to get, lol.

You will also need the wiring harness that goes from the head unit to the bottom of the steering column where the coil wires come out (from the new clockspring).

I have all the part numbers for this if you need them, except the wiring harness that goes from the stock HU to the coil output connector (I didn't need this since I wasn't going to a stock HU).

Originally posted by tosun28
I still hope that GM build them like they used to build them, I recall all my Fieros if it didn’t have a item, the wires was there just add the item and plug in...
Unfortunately it's not that easy for the wheel controls, or anything else for that matter. For example the headliner wiring is also completely different for cars that have the convenience lighting in the headliner (front and rear) and for cars that just have the simple dome lamp.

Originally posted by tosun28
I really wanted to get a slave tape for my car as I have seen in some post that some our cars had them, I found one here local for 15.00 with the wire, but they don’t have the trim for it :(

Anyone know of anyone who has trim for this remote/slave tape deck?

Thanks for any help

Donnie
Yeah the slave tape isn't that hard to install either, again you'll just need a few parts--the deck itself, the harness and the trim. I was going to say the same thing you've already discovered--the trim is rather hard to find. You could order it from GM but the price would likely be high, even if they had still had any. Again a saved eBay search is the best way as they do pop up every now and again. I don't know exactly who uses tapes anymore, lol, (especially when you can write a CD on any modern computer and CDs cost all of like 50 cents) but if you really want to do it you'll just have to keep an eye out for the trim.