I'm unsure when the change to the 200 series inner door panel happened.

I owned a 1975 244 DL in 1985 and the inner door panel was flat. Installing surface mount speakers of around 5.25" secured to that 1975 Volvo 244 DL front inner door panels was quite easy.

I installed replacement speakers in my 1991 240 sedan (front and rear doors, no hat shelf). I removed the front door HT-204 speaker mounts and speakers. I installed some 4" Infinity brand speaker in 2004 or so. I have to file (or use a Dremel tool) away material from the back of the Infinity speaker mount back plates so the speakers would seat into the profile recess where the front factory speakers install. My 1991 240 sedan has rear door speakers using the factory rear door inner panel cut outs (remove the rear panel and near the bottom you'll find perforations forming a circle to accommodate the Volvo speaker grilles and speakers. The Infinity speakers are great, yet I'm finding the factory 20x4 watt amp, mounted behind the lower, shallow cubby, requires a higher input (probably 2 to 4 volts of line level signal) than a portable, modern CD receiver or MP3 player. At least the collection of wiring harnesses in the 1991 240 are fine.

Okay, so I'd been spending quite sometime installing a stereo in my 1992 240 GL. (I have to replace all five exhaust manifold gaskets, so a PB Blaster drip and drop on the manifold retaining hardware for the last few weeks hopefully avoids some problems.)

This 1992 240 GL was horribly abused by prior owners. It has had two different stereos installed it after the factory radio and amp were removed and the wire harnesses throughout the poor wee beastie were hacked, looking for convenient power taps. I'm repairing the wire harness section as I install the stereo. The wire harness is so horribly hacked up, I can't use the factory auto stereo wire harnesses. This car a speaker in each front door and two on the rear hat shelf.

I'd been hoping to find some HT-204 speaker mounts, secure these to the 1992 240 GL front inner door panels. The front inner door panels around the speaker holes is so chewed up and split. The most recent car stereo install used the butyl rubber back dynamat, duct tape, and perhaps a small care free wood screw or two. There was live battery power traveling to the trunk where a very large amplifier and sub-woofer resided.

Welp, I remove the rear and driver seats, removed the hacked up cabling and have Volvo rear hat shelf speaker wire harnesses from 240s and 700s. I removed the rear head rests and hat shelf. Routed the replacement rear speaker wiring harness from the center console to the driver side terminating at the two rear hat shelf speaker locations. I used butyl rubber to dampen vibration between the rear hat shelf a sheet metal below. I removed what remained of the three plastic retainer things (more decorative than functional). I used hardware (bolts and washers) to secure the rear hat shelf to the three rear metal support (or anchors?). These anchors have a weird and coarse thread. You may note the 240 rear hatch shelf has two holes covered by felting near the front next to the rear head rests. These two holes were used in older 240 models to secure the hat shelf to the sheet metal. I'm using bolts and washers, again.

I want the speaker resonance to pass into the auto body without vibration. Doubtful two rear 5.25" Alpine SPS speakers can rattle much if at all. These speakers are like a decade old.

As a happy accident, as with the rear speakers, I used much larger hardware to secure the front speakers. These are Lightning Audio 4" two way speakers (with mounting back plate and grille) I got from another Volvo 240 at the yunkyard. I found another set of grilles (without the speakers) for these same speakers in another 240.

I'd collected quite a few of those speaker retainer clips used by the Volvo factory in rear door or rear hat shelf speaker installs in 240s. These clips use an M5 bolt with a six-point hex (Allen) key head. For the front and rear, I used washers (the M5 bolt passes through the washer hole).

As I did with the Infinity speaker back plates and grilles, I used the Dremel tool sloppily cut away material from the Lightning Audio 4" speaker back plates and grilles with a taper following the chambered edge from the recess the speaker secures to in the door panel to the proud sections above and below. The fiberboard was so chewed up, it took a few days to strengthen the fiber board layers with Goop adhesive. I was afraid every time I futzed with the panel speaker hole it'd all fall apart. I was also afraid the speakers would sit too deep and make contact with the window. Quite some room between the speaker magnet and the power glass window works as it travel up and down.

While I was inside both doors, I inspect for corrosion, cleaned the crap at the door bottom, tightened loose and installed missing hardware, lubed up all works (power windows [the big gear], door lock, inner door lever open handle mechanism) with various greases. I also loosened and tightened all ground and treated each ground with No-OX or Lithium grease).

The two bolts that retain the 240 front door handles were either loose or missing. I'll bet as these door retaining bolts work loose, it may lead to premature door handle failure.

All tested out and I documented the wire harness connection. I have a Sony CDX-4160 CD receiver made in 1997. It works, yet I dissembled it using the Sony service manual (in PDF), cleaned it up (CD laser led) and lubed the inject/eject and other CD player mechanism mechanical. Won't play CDRs, though. So, no Scottish Pipes and Drums CD for me.

The stereo sounds better then the other two. To be fair, the 1991 240 sedan has no stereo in it save for an MP3 player and the stock amp with the infinity speakers. The 1990 240 DL wagon has an Alpine CD receiver and speaker in the front door, rear door, and the factory Volvo 245 wagon C-pillar speaker on that funky triangular shape leatherette-covered thingy. Eventually, I'll remedy this poor stereo set up in these other two 240s, someday.

Even the junkyard power antennae works, though it'll take some more grease treatments so the mechanism operates smoothly and quietly. I'll also put a switch inline between the head unit remote antennae/amp signal lead so the antennae is down when listening to CDs.

Conclusions:
- When installing a stereo in a Volvo 240 and you do it right, prepare to be frustrated. You can always install all really crappy-like and be frustrated.
- Always, always, always use the factory wire harness and connections using easily available adapters.
- I have to work more with these, yet a factory installed Volvo 240 HT-204 speaker mounts (the final frontier of Volvo 240 factory front door speaker accessories), with a quality 5.25 speaker in it, does not pass speaker resonance at all well into the door. Yet cheap 4" aftermarket speakers well secured to the front door panel does. Perhaps if the HT-204 speaker mount was removed from the stupid rivets, then reinstalled using retaining hardware (bolt, washers, nuts) maybe it'd work better to pass speaker resonance into the car door? I dunno how strong the HT-204 housing ABS plastic material is.
- If installing speaker into the rear hat shelf (or to the sheet metal below it, use hardware to secure that fiberboard rear hat shelf to the three rear supports and through the two front holes at the center of the rear hat shelf.
- When you remove things to gain access to door interiors, spaces under the carpet, and the like, replace the old duck tape (that secures things like the plastic liner under the inner door panels and wire harnesses along the route), lube what is needs it (door hinges and latches, pivot points on the window raising-lowering mechanism, and so forth), tighten and loose and replace missing hardware, verify good ground point, and inspect for corrosion. You may want to clean surfaces of dirt to ensure a good adhesion.

I've installed bunches of auto stereo systems and corrected crappy work by car stereo installers. I don't do it professionally. I merely perform auto (and home) stereo installation as correctly as possible.

The entire 1992 240 GL stereo, save for the rear speaker that came with the 240, is from the junkyard. Under 50$ and perhaps 30 or more hours. I am moving slowly on this.

Questions and comments?

Music selection suggestions? I'm sick and tired of my CD-mp3 collection?

Maybe I'll post an image or two somewhat later. Few auto are more stereo install frustrating than Volvo 240. Do other makes and model really suck to install a stereo into a car?

Today: Milk-run. 1% for early grey tea and buttermilk for the happy.