Sven,

Thanks much - you provided me with some great info. A couple of differences between my '93 and the '83 - '89s you've worked on: I've got 5 1/4" OEM speakers with the hexagonal grills. The mounting bracket does have 8 holes BUT the inner 4 holes are where rivets attached the bracket to the pressboard. The outer 4 holes are where the speaker attached to the bracket with four short screws - they did not extend through the bracket into the chipboard. No spring clips were used. Poorly designed IMO - the rivets in those inner 4 holes were less than 1/8th of an inch from the edge of the chipboard cutout. With such little support, they were bound to fail from repeated door closings - I'm surprised they lasted 12 years. My chipboard is now shredded at the 4 rivet mounting holes.

If I've described my setup properly, you may see the problem I have - if I simply attach the bracket to spring clips on the sheet metal backing plate with screws, there will be no support from the chipboard - it is shredded in those locations. The backing plate will prevent the speaker from falling from the door, but the whole assembly will be loose. I'll know better once I get the door panel off, but I think some version of the second of your "cures" is the way I need to go: Attach speaker to bracket using only two of the four outer mounting holes. Two machine screws in door sheet metal, heads on back side of steel, threads pointing to passenger compartment. Screws positioned to come through the other two outer holes in bracket. Rubber bushings over screw threads provide some solid spacing between backing plate and door steel. Four screws through inner rivet holes of braket to spring clips on backing plate. PITA but it shouldn't budge after that.

I'll be at the Pick n Pull next weekend looking for some suitable sheet metal for backing plates. Thanks again for all the advice.

Jim