Salvage yard... should be plenty of them there by now.

 

Here's what I can add about replacing the factory amp. I'm still using a Polk Audio subwoofer in the factory plastic box with the factory amp and I'm back to my factory radio again. after 2 aftermarket's were stolen...

ANYWAY: I recently tried to replace the factory amp with an aftermarket amp to see if that 8 inch sub woofer would sound better with more power. I found an MTX 250 watt amp, about the same size as the factory amp - and with a little southern ingenuity I could have made it work - HOWEVER - the factory ford amp obviously has a built in cross over for a sub! I never took that in to account. The MTX did NOT - I got frustrated and gave up on the project after that and now I'm pretty much done with the whole car audio thing in this truck (until I get another hair up my butt of course)

SO: If you are using the factory radio, or a radio without dedicated crossover to the sub, you'll need an amp with a cross over, or a minimum some subwoofer caps on the speaker leads to choke out the treble. If you don't understand what that means, I'm too old and forget trying this...

 

I just ordered one these these for 95.00 shipped. According to the Ford dealership it is an obsolete part and ony 12 of them in the entire US of A. Scratch , make that 11 of them now. 630-350-1500

 

I picked up one of these on Ebay in an auction for $13.00 shipped;
650 Watt 8” Sub Acoustic Audio BASS8 Subwoofer

The dimensions of the new speaker worked great in the Sub enclosure. The new speaker is slightly smaller in diameter with 4 mounting holes, so new holes had to be drilled and used.

The stock amp and speaker seem to be a good match, as I get great sound from the sub with little distortion, in fact, I had to run the sub at 75% bass. The sub will handle 100%, but at 75%, it seems balanced with the other speakers instead of being overbearing.

At $13.00 to provide my stock amp with a speaker to replace my blown speaker with, the project turned out real well and am happy with it!

Here are the specs on the BASS8 Sub;

• 8” High Performance Subwoofer
• Designed and Engineered in USA
• Power Handling Capabilities:
• 325 Watts RMS to 650 Watts Maximum
• Recommended Power:
• 30 Watts to 650 Watts
• 2” Parabolic RFL Voice Coil
• 60 oz. Magnet
• Oversized Rubber Surround
• 4 Ohm Impedance
• Poly Zirconium Cone
• Efficiency / Sensitivity 98dB @ 1 Watt / 1 Meter
• Polyimide Voice Coil Former
• Mid Q Design for Versatility in Enclosure Compatibility
• Flat Progressive Roll Spider
• CEA Cooling Technology
• Vented and Extended Pole Piece
• Low Carbon Top and Bottom Plate
• Weather Resistant Design
• Approved for Car Audio and Marine Use
• 3 Year Warranty

 

Yep, when I posted that information over 6 years ago it was plentiful, but they have since obsoleted it. Lucky you found those.

 

Well, I went with your advice here, but another warning besides that the frame is a bit small is that the two wire connectors are both the smaller size. The stock set-up had one larger and one smaller, seen here:


I guess I need to figure out a way to get the too-large connector to stay on good.

 

Well, I just crushed the connector a bit so that it made a tighter fit. Back together now, and sounds fine. So, the BASS8 seems to be working okay.

 

I just took my sub set up out yesterday. It has been blown for sometime but not having any bass is just darn right illegal in my mind and I can't take it anymore. I have some personal experience with rewiring a system after tons of practice but that was with my 91 honda accord 5spd ex and 01 honda crv ex. The crv I completely changed out the speackers and upgraded the wires and then ran two 6x9's in the trunk in the floor enclores and turned my speakers upside down. Got nothing but clear and clean sound. Now about to do the same with my 98 Exp with Mach. The sub wasn't that hard to take out. Only took me about 30mins to get it out and but everything back (of course not the sub). I plan on building my own enclosure and going from there. i have too many speakers, wires and amps laying around, to be goin out buying new equipment, plus not a big fan of polk. Will keep everyone posted not sure when I will get to it. With Holiday's coming and going, two jobs, a college student & 5 kids. I am pretty busy ( yes i was busy when I was younger) . Has anyone built their own encloser yet? Not sure if anyone said they did.

__________________
98 5.4 Eddie 4x4 176K (soon to be 75k) - she's back!
88 Stang 5.0 HO (stock for now)
01 Windstar LX (a huge pain in the you know what )
95 Mazda Protege Dx 1.5L Rotory 5spd 222,252 miles (wrecked - gone but not forgotten)

 

can someone please help me with this:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/s...1#post11165384

 

Is there any way for me to fit a 10 inch beats by dre subwoofer height 7.5 depth 12.4 width 12.3

 

So I recently decided to fix the subwoofer. The sources on eBay, and junkyards have pretty much dried up. Mine had the typical foam ring blowout, but the paper cone is still good.


First I bought a $30 new generic speaker off ebay (stats: 400W, 4 ohm, single voice coil, 3.5 inch topmount depth). The fit was not 100% perfect as the 8 holes around the rim are slightly farther apart in the housing than on the speaker. It sounded OK, not as good as the original, but much better than nothing.


Then I stumbled across simplyspeakers.com. These guys sell repair kits for speakers. They have videos on YouTube on how to do the repairs. I ordered the JBL kit, since JBL made the OEM speaker. The foam repair kit comes with an adhesive and a preservative The kit is (FSK-8), and I added a paper gasket (GAS-8) because I ignorantly destroyed the old one. Total with shipping was about $40.


It took about an hour to repair the speaker, and another hour to install it. I was able to keep my original speaker, and it sounds like new again.


If you don't want to do the work yourself, you can ship it to them and they can rebuild the whole thing, new cone, voice coil and everything.