Macintosh sub rattle

by **Woodduck** » Sun May 30, 2010 9:08 pm

Iv noticed my sub on my parcel shelf is rattling. It doesn't have to be a 'doof doof' song to rattle, its pretty much any song. I had a look from the top, and from in the boot and cant figure out where it is that I can access the mounting points to tighten it all up? Any clues? Does anyone else's rattle?

by **mihai** » Sun May 30, 2010 9:25 pm

to access the mounting points to tighten, you are going to have to remove the parcel shelf carpet lining.

to do this, you need to remove the side panel at the back of the C - pillar. Pretty simple. Clarence's workshop manual has all the details.

If you do take this step, would you mind taking a photo of how the sub is installed in your car? I dont have the McIntosh sound system and would like to see how the stock sub is mounted. Thanks.

by **Woodduck** » Sun May 30, 2010 9:30 pm

Sweet. Thanks for that. I knew there had to be someone that had to be undone before i could get to it. Just couldn't figure out where exactly! Yeah i'll probably get to it next weekend so i'll upload some photos then.

by **bert_** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 11:05 pm

sorry for digging up an old-ish thread, was just wondering how'd you go with this?

just picked up my lib and notice mine rattles really badly.

by **The Sean** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 11:26 pm

Hey Guys, do you reckon that you could tighten it down without removing the shelf, i.e. working from below?

There are 5 screws holding the speaker down, 4 off you'd expect at 90 degree intervals around the speaker and another sort of at the back left hand side (if your head was in the boot looking up.

I reckon you could grab them with a pair of needle nose pliers / quik-grips and tighten them down.

I agree that to remove the sub, there is no option but to take the shelf off but to simply tighten them down, you should be able to work from below the parcel shelf

I got to apologise, I completely forgot to take pics when I changed mine over, my bad.

If it isn't actually loose, try grabbing the magnet and being able to move the whole speaker chassis, I'd say the voice coil is gone. The original one I got with the car with moved pretty easily (fingers lightly lifting the cone from the underside, really lightly I stress) compared to the one I got from Phat GT as a replacement (he kept his after he did a sub replacement years ago - sorry boys, I can't see him having more)

Mind you, this might be hard for you guys to compare without having a good sub next to it for comparison sake.

Also, there were two braces (plastic stick thing with a 30mm x 60mm foam pad on the end) sort of just behind the centre head rest, if they had come away from the shelf, I'd say that could cause a rattle --> to check these aren't the culprits, put your hands on the shelf either side of the centre arm rest while some decent bass is in the place (LONDON! - couldn't help myself) and if the rattle goes away, that would be the cause (mind you, I doubt it would be, those brace thingies would be pretty hard to come away unless someone didn't refit the parcel shelf without proper care)

Again, should have taken photos, sorry.

by **The Sean** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 11:29 pm

I'm getting a distinct feeling this Macintosh system we have has a finite life span around this 5 year mark and things are going to go south for some of us from here on...my tweeter installed behind the line of the drivers side um, side mirror was sounding crackly the other day :roll:

by **garbo41610** » Wed Oct 20, 2010 8:42 am

Around $500 (plus speakers, budget $300-$600 depending on what speakers you like) will get you a front stage install that sounds really good. FHRX fitted the new speaker in my MY05 GT because the OEM speakers suck. Check out my install.

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by **Kekotic** » Wed Oct 20, 2010 11:35 am

I had a rattle in my boot when I got the car, right in the center of the boot (below the parcel shelf) there was this black bit of plastic going up inside, I just duct taped that tightly to the metal of the boot and the rattle stopped....ghetto fix :lol:

by **Mr Cali** » Wed Oct 20, 2010 11:47 am

Garbo do you have pics of the sub replacement and mounting brackets?

by **teK--** » Wed Oct 20, 2010 12:02 pm

It could also be the centre seatbelt mechanism which is in the white box in the boot under the shelf. Mine rattles like crazy sometimes not much can do about it.

by **garbo41610** » Wed Oct 20, 2010 12:57 pm

Mr Cali wrote:Garbo do you have pics of the sub replacement and mounting brackets?

Sorry mate, I didn't upgrade the sub, was planning on it, just never got around to it. However, I did install a lot of Dynamat under the sub and it cleaned up the sound a lot. Still sounded like sh1t but just not muddy, vibraty sh1t.

Mihai has an install thread when he installed an 8'' Vibe sub. I'm pretty sure he did the install himself. The Vibes are a nice sounding sub, well the exact8 model is but apparently since then Vibe's quality has apparently gone down the crapper. Sounds about right though, it seems that it happens to every reputable company. Rockford Fosgate, JL Audio you name it, they have just about all lost it.