2nd gen - rear speaker replacement write up

[InfinitySurf]

Figured I would post this since I didnt find anything that showed exactly what to do in order to replace the speakers at the rear of the 2nd gen Royal Star Venture - mine is a 2012. I got the Polk DB402 speakers since many have said good things about them and I found a great deal on 4 of them as I also intend to replace the front speakers sometime soon. I am not planning to install an amp at this time, I typically play music thru the AUX cable using my phone.

Attaching a bunch of pictures with notes written on them of the process of removing, re-wiring for the different connectors needed and then re-install. Hopefully this is helpful to others in the future.

You 1st have to peel off the armrest pad which is held down with a thin double sided adhesive... I heated it up slightly and then carefully pulled them off.

Then remove the 4 screws in the rear center cover that passenger leans against.

Then to remove the plastic housing on each side which the speaker is connected too there are 4 screws to remove, note that all 4 screws are different so you may wanna label where each one goes. There are 2 screws at the top which are under the armrest pad. There is 1 screw at center rear where passenger leans against...and at the bottom there are 2 screws but you only remove 1 of the 2. Initially I removed 1 and then started to remove the 2nd not realizing that there is a small metal bracket that is held in place with those 2 screws so once you remove 1 of the 2... the other is just gonna spin the bracket which runs risk of breaking something so only remove 1 of the 2.

The OEM Clarion speaker has different connectors than the new Polk DB402 so I removed the spades from the connector... and since the Polk speakers come with wiring pigtail that has the properly sized spades I cut the old spades off the OEM wiring and then soldered the pigtail to the OEM wiring.

The OEM speaker is disconnected with 4 nuts BUT it was also held to the plastic housing with some sort of adhesive that didnt wanna release, since I didnt wanna risk breaking the housing, I used a heat gun to heat that area up around the OEM speaker and then it pulled loose pretty easy. The Polk speakers have the same bolt pattern so it was easy to push the tabs onto the existing bolts and then re-install the nuts.

I has some foam baffles but being pretty tight back there I cut them down some and cut slits in the foam where the wiring connects to the speakers and then used some duct tape to hold the baffle down tight to the back of the speaker so it would direct as much of the sound forward as possible. Speakers sounded really good after the install and seems well worth the cost. I will likely add an amp down the road but not something I am planning to do at this time. Will get the front speakers replaced at some point this winter and will also do a similar write-up when I do that. Happy Holidays!