The Adventures of do-it-yourself radio installation (tm).  The radio in the roomates car, which I have been using, sucks.  I don't mean of poor quality, or not enough bass, I mean it really sucks.  The volume knob has no effect on volume. If the speakers fade out (and they do quite regularly) there is a 'sweet spot' on the dash that you pound to get the music back. If you can call the noise this thing makes, music.  Particularly annoying is the local  traffic radio slogan, it's ferociously high pitched and really strains the radio, my ears and my patience. To ease the pain associated with getting traffic reports, I decided to put a new stereo in the car.  My total cost for the radio (Pioneer cassette), two new 4in speakers (the only speakers) and 25 feet of speaker wire came to 96.86. Wahoo!

The old speaker. The shredded remains  of the old cone still cling to the magnet. You're not supposed to be able to see through these!

Now I did this when the car's owner was not in town. Why?  He's a little squeamish when it comes to dismantling large, expensive things, like cars,  particularly when it is someone else is dismantling something he owns.

Here's a picture of the work in progress. Note the watch strapped to the gear shift. That was the clock. Also note the time of day, the car is in shadows making it hard to see how truly bad the interior is.

While working away I was putting the discarded bits and pieces into the back to make room up front. Eventually I built up this little landslide of Toyota guts. The big thing on the right is the glove box. Actually its the entire passenger side under dash assembly, but mostly it's the glovebox. Another reason to get folding seats!

Finally, the end result.  Truly a masterpiece.  Geez, I hate to brag but 89 Corrola's with 181000 miles on them just don't get any cleaner than this. The sun is much farther along in the sky now.  I left the old cassette deck in there, as it would have involved taking apart the whole center console. The old radio was two pieces, the radio on top and the deck in front of the gear shifter. Now everything is up top.  Better yet, I only had one screw left over after I reassembled everything. I think I'll tell Brent it's a spare screw :)