Hey there everybody,
I am in the middle of fixing all of my interior pieces, with the intent to do the best job I can for under 50 bucks including repainting it. Since I can't get a deal on paint, I really have to limit the rest of things. I was going to buy some fabric to recover the speaker covers from Rodney Dickman, but once I took mine out I had a wave of genius 
After seeing the sides of the speaker cover were still like new because they'd not been hit by the sun, I was curious what the other side would be like. Since I was going to have to take the covers off anyway, I decided what the heck...let's see.
I began by peeling the edges loose very gently from the trimmed edge around the cover. I just did this with my fingernail, took about five minutes for each side. After getting the cover off one, this is what I saw:
My theory was feeling promising...since the speaker covers are exactly opposite shapes (symmetrical about the inner edge), the covers could be flipped over onto the other side. This would allow the covers to show the like-new color and be re-used.
The speaker covers had dark spots on them, where the holes are, so I had to wash them. I just washed them by hand in my sink with a little liquid detergent and some elbow grease. I rubbed the soap into them gently in the water, let them sit for about 15 minutes, rubbed them again, and rinsed them. I let them air dry, and they werew still a little dirty, so I washed them a second time. They looked clean after that, almost brand new appearing. Here's a pic of the comparison, side to side:
Comparison of Colors
Obviously, they looked pretty retarded before Some people mentioned just painting the stock speaker grill. I really didn't think much off that idea, because this is what it looks like:
Plastic Cover
Just not my style...and I didn't want to buy new fabric to recover, as I said before. So, time to try and reglue the covers. I had talked with a few guys at the Alabama swap meet about how they recovered their speaker covers (they had both bought and recommended Rodney's Beachwood fabric for their cars). They recommended contact cement for several reasons. It is cheap, easy to find, easy to use and take your time with, and it supposedly holds up to the sun very well. I liked the cheap and easy part, but I have yet to see if it holds up to the sun well over long periods of time, obviously.
To reglue the cover, you need some sort of clamping method. Since I didn't have any woodworking clamps, I used some plastic clothes pins I saw at walmart. I just did a little bit at a time (15mm) starting on the smallest side, and leaving the corners alone. I was very careful to line the cloth up and hold it in place with the clothes pins around the edges before doing any gluing. After I was comfortable with the positioning, I did the opposite side (the second smallest side). Remember, the cloth is cut exactly to the size you want it to be, so try to line up the edges of the cloth with the old cut lines.
The gluing is somewhat tedious, taking a minute to lay some glue, letting it dry a minute, putting the cloth into the glue, clamping the cloth over the glue, repositioning everything to fit right, laying some more glue, etc. It took me about an hour for each side, total. I started with the smallest side, second smallest side, large flat side, curved side, and corners last. The nice thing at this point about re-using the old covers is that there is no trimming. The covers came out looking really good, like new. Here's a look:
I was very pleased with the outcome, and it cost me 2 bucks for a bottle of glue and a buck fifty for clothes pins. I also have a ton of the 3 oz. bottle left (it was the smallest they had at Lowe's) and about a dozen clothes pins for future projects, or for making fridge magnets out of 
I highly recommend you ALL do this super-cheap upgrade. Since it's cut to fit already, it's basically a "stay in the lines" operation. The entire job took me an actual work period of probably three hours, and the covers look brand new.
I hadn't seen anybody do a write up on this, so I figured I'd spread the word. Give this a try if your covers are faded, and let me know what you think. I'm sure you'll be as pleased as me Happy trails...
Bryce
88 GT
Damn, two typos tonight...hehe...I think it's bed time
[This message has been edited by Nashco (edited 05-19-2001).]
