I have a 2nd Gen (1995-1999 BD/BG) Subaru Legacy Wagon and I wanted to installed some 6.5″ Alpine (SPS-610) speakers in all of the doors. It seems although there are many places that sell speaker spacers/adapters for Subarus, no one makes adapters for the rear doors on this generation of Legacy. Apparently most Subarus share identical speaker mounting except for the rear Legacy speakers, they’re a different shape and no one has bothered to make adapters specific for this car.
I recently bought a 3D printer so I decided to make some.
First I took some measurements of the opening in the door, and the spacing between the factory speaker screw mounts. I also measured the depth and basket diameter of my speaker and estimated the depth available in the door with the window down. Finally I estimated the space available between the factory speaker grill and the door itself to make sure I’d have enough room. and I drew up a sketch with some notes.
Next I used FreeCAD to convert my sketch into a digital sketch. I had never used FreeCAD before but I had heard it was similar to SolidWorks (which I am familiar with) so I decided to try it. It’s not nearly as good as SolidWorks but it worked well enough to do what I needed to do.
Once the sketch was complete I converted to 3D geometry and exported as an STL file for the 3D print.
The STL file is then converted to G-Code instructions that the printer can read to create the object.
My first version was actually a little too thick, it rubbed up against the back of the speaker grill, So I remeasured, adjusted the 3D model and re-printed… the final result fits flawlessly and mounts up just like the OEM speakers.
I used some Metra wire adapters to make the whole thing plug-n-play.
If you’re interested in printing your own you can get the files on Thingiverse. I do have some of these pre-printed if you want a pair I will ship them anywhere in the USA for $15.