Originally Posted by 2004TOYO

No mods @ all, it literally dropped in the slot. One thing though, I did not put the top bracket back on that holds the speaker down but the speaker fits snug in the bottom bracket anyway. The JL sounds about the same or a little better (matter of opinion). I just didnt want to spend the $350+ that the "stealership" wanted for a replacement. I found the sub on ebay for $65 & it took me about 2 hrs start to finish.

Originally Posted by BizEagle

The Kicker 8" 8 Ohm has some high quality spring pressure quick connect contacts designed to insert the ends of bare wire. You just depress the spring with your thumb, insert the end of a bare wire in the hole and let it go. It clamps down very firmly on the wire. Theses connectors are very strong and well made. I wanted to do a neat job and use the existing OEM wiring as much as possible so I de-soldered the leads from the ML sub woofer to retain the OEM connector with it's speaker wire designed to plug into the car's wiring harness. I found that the wires were now a little too short for the Kicker sub because of the distance between the + and - contacts on the new sub. I bought a couple of small rolls of stranded 18 gauge hook up wire from Radio Shack (same size and color as the OEM wire - black and red) and soldered them to the ends of the OEM wiring to add about 4" to each lead. Then I used some common 1" heat shrink insulation (also from Radio Shack)to cover each splice individually, heated the heat shrinks with a hair dryer and viola! a neat little insulated wiring lead was ready to go. I stripped about 1/2 "insulation from the new ends of the 2 leads, heated them with a soldering iron and melted some solder into the fresh ends of the new stranded wire just to give it a quality finish and to insure that it would very durable. I also put one 1" heat shrink insulator over the wires as they exit the OEM connector to hold the 2 wires together and reduce a potential stress point (probably overkill but I am a little OCD about my projects). Then I just plugged the fresh wire leads into the two connectors on the new Kicker sub, dropped the sub into the deck, plugged it into the car's wiring harness and screwed it all down.

Also, one more step I did not mention earlier is that there is thick foam insulation on the rear dash cover and when you remove the dash cover, the foam may come loose from the dash cover. Mine was loose but I suspect the mechanic who replaced my rear struts actually pulled it loose because you have to pull the rear seat and dash to get to the bolts atop the rear struts. To reattach the foam, I used 3M Super Trim Adhesive. Follow the directions on the can which will tell you to spray the adhesive on both surfaces and let it cure for at least 4 minutes before pushing the surfaces together. I also put some pressure on the bond to be sure the surfaces stuck together.

Another helpful point was that I put the seat bench in the car to sit on while I drilled out the deck and re-installed the rear dash. It was a lot softer than sitting on the bare metal in the car. Again, it was a bigger project than I anticipated but if you have the time, it was rewarding. I just parked my LS430 for a few days and drove my other car so I would not be under any time pressure. If you have any other questions, just leave them on here and I will check back in a few days.

Originally Posted by greywolf40

I made a little how-to video on repairing the speakers in the LS430:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW2VWq2LLHs
I hope you folks find it helpful!

Originally Posted by whutt

Getting ready to wire up a DQ-61 I just got in, but it seems like the wiring diagram link in the first few posts is missing.

Does anyone have the pinouts for the 04-06 ML amp? Looking to cut the wires going to the factory speakers and route them directly to the DQ-61 (FL/FR & Sub), running fresh speaker wire from there.

W.

Originally Posted by yuri.ber

Alright. I replaced my aftrermarket Alpine speakers with stock ML units front and back. I bought all four speakers in original housings off a member here on CL. Since I installed Dynamat in all doors and rear deck before ML sounds awesome, louder and great bass production as well as sounding clean and clear. I love it!
Now I'm going to say something people might start throwing stones at me . I'm thinking of replacing my Kicker sub for a stock ML unit. Why? Since Dynamat made a huge difference in door speakers I assume it's gonna make that difference for sub as well. Positive thing is amp will not be under any stress at all.

Originally Posted by LSB

I found it here: https://www.clublexus.com/forums/att...oschematic.pdf

Let me know how the Audiocontrol setup goes. I've been going back and forth between a JL CleanSweep or an Audiocontrol unit to install an aftermarket amp setup I have from my GS but beyond that, i'm getting discouraged by reading about having to remove the whole dash to install replacement tweeters up front.