Parcel shelf....How's yours??

[imported_brackie]

OK, I'm an originality nut. Probably due to my nostalgic disposition. When I bought my Mk1 there was no parcel shelf. I asked the dealer, "Who traded her in?" He gave me the guy's 'phone# so I rang him and sure enough the old shelf was in his shed and you can guess the condition! Picked it up but checked out ebay and ebay UK motors but good parcels shelves are becoming hard to find, and expensive to buy and ship. So I decided to have a go at the old one. Didn't take any pics but the reason it was dicarded was bad damage to the edges where it rests on the fixed side shelves, carpet torn off, "hinge" destroyed, no hangers and just generally poor. I'm surprised the previous owner didnt take it to the tip.
First job was to repair the carpet and torn/broken/split composite material.
I had to choose the right glue so I trialed a variety on small pieces of split shelf. Contact adhesive, PVA and Araldite. Surprisingly, PVA came out best. I penetrated the shelf well, set hard and dried clear, but after gluing I still didn't trust the repaired shelf edges for strength. Out came the tinsnips and I cut two pieces of galv. steel sheet that were lying around the diary workroom. These were then shaped and bent so that the fitted the contours of the edge of the shelf. The strips were then pop rivetted to the metal strip at either end of the shelf. Before fixing I applied contact adhesive to ensure a good bond to the shelf.
Next I used contact to stick the carpet back onto the composite. Luckily, there were few tears and no holes, so this went really well.
I used some "Export" black aerosol to spray paint the underneath of the shelf and then turned my attention to the "hinge". Placement of the carpet and black-and-white elasticated straps is crucial to getting the shelf to sit right and the hatch to close without jamming it so I spent some time playing with it until I got it right. It's important to contact the carpet to the rear edge of the metal strip of the shelf. After this, I bought some hangers from an ebay seller for $4 and the shelf is a goer! Ok, so it's not absolutely original but it works and you would have to peer closely underneath to see the metal strips.
(If you have any restoration or repair stories it would be great if you could spend the time to post them. You could be really helping someone!)

[el_foolio]

yeah brackie, mine was the same, i originally took it out, because it was so ugly, but i soo realised i would need it for mounting speakers, because i have yet to discover a good way of mounting speakers in my doors (other than my most recent idea, to make new door insert panels. and put 6x9's on the lower left, as there is a perfect hole for thme) but anyway, i intend to recarpet my parcel shelf (and dooer inserts) but for the moment i sprayed the existing 'carpet' matt black, and reinforced them.
finally if anyone has any speaker ideas (front doors) let me know, because other than finding shorther window winders, i have nothing, because i cant put spacers in.

[Golf Loon]

You can put round speakers top left on drivers door, under 1/4 window and the windows work ok. There is a hole there too.

Or extend the brackets for the back shelf and fit speakers there. You could also trim down the parcel shelf to fit, thus cutting off all the badness.

[el_foolio]

wow good idea, i will check that out tommorow

[Golf Loon]

Its not original, but very effective.



If your paccel shelf was weak at the edges, trim it down a bit and it would still look pretty stock.

[el_foolio]

ill post some pics up of my solution in the next few days

[gldgti]

for rear speaker mountins, i just put them in my timber parcel shelf htat i made (see webiste blah blah.)

front doors were trickier however. i managed to fit Rado 5.25" round speakers in the front doors at the bottom front corners where the holes are, however the winders did just interfere with the speaker. luckily however, the rado speakers are a fairly flush fit so it didnt matter much.

earlier this year i made new door inserts for all my doors. i ised 3mm plywood as the base material, and glued some 6mm foam rubber sheeting ontop, then glued black vynyl onto this. no pids yet, but frankly, they look extremely good, are soft, cut down on road noise and are lighter than the originals. i even used the original plastic clips to mount the panels, so no ugly scrwes etc.

what i was getting to is that when i did this, i was able to move the speakers further into the corner, so that the peakers no longer interfere with the window winders, regulator mechanism etc. glueing a bit of carpet underlay to the inside of the dorr directly behind the speaker improved sound quality too!

I have 4 speakers in the golf now, all cheap ones: 2 6x9's in the back in my rear parcel shelf (no longer the 6" in the pics), and the 2 5.25's in the front.

I kid you not, my car is the best sounding 4 speaker system i have ever come across, and i've seen some really expesive set ups with 4 speakers before. nothing comes close to the amount of bass you can get if you use the rear parcel shelf/back seat area as a giant speaker box.

thats why all those silly ppl use sub woofers

one of these days i'll show you guys pics....when i can get my hands on a digital camera for a few days...

[el_foolio]

ripped my parcel shelf out yesterday. now im running: jaycar 6" kevlar splits in the front doors (top right, below qaurter windows) and 6" jaycar's in the rear doors (bottom right (theres 6: holes there) and 4" jaycars in the side parcels

[static1800]

My parcel shelf has given way under the weight of my 6x9's the fact that there in speaker boxe's dont help either
all the screws are poping out from the back of the seat.
Ive just resorted to not opening the boot until i sort it out, ive got a spare in good nick any suggestions?

[Golf Loon]

Just make a wooden parcelshef, Golf ones are flat anyway, cover with cloth or carpet and dont connect it to the boot. Thus you open the boot and lift the shelf manually. Dont cut up any good parcelshelfs, there are not many left as it is.