Well I have a new radio surround that I'll be putting in my car pretty soon. I was thinking of coating the back of it with something to prevent it from breaking. What do you guys think? What would you use?

 

You know what I did to mine? Bathroom Tub and Tile caulk... It's flexible, it coats well, but strengthens... Good stuff!!

 

That sounds pretty good. Would I want flexible though? I mean I was thinking more along the lines of an epoxy or JB weld so theres like no chance of it breaking at all. I'm not sure though.

 

The problems with that stuff is sometimes it's corrosive to plastics... By flexible, I mean it won't become brittle, which is the main problem with our surrounds... Just go down to home depot, buy a hand held bottle of it for 2 bucks and go at it!!! I used the General Electric brand. Works awesome!!!

 

what I have done on a couple of series 4 radio surrounds now when they start to crack, is too wrap them with black vinyl cloth.

You need to really clean them, and slightly grind/sand down the area where the vents pop in (or the vents will buldge and crack and also sand/trim the edges of the ashtray a little to get extra clearance.

Then use a good contact cement and some strechy upholstry grade black vinyl and a heat gun to stretch it, but the results are great. Much better than the stock hard plastic, or the lame rubber feel of the series 5 radio surround.

The other nice thing is that it is hard to tell from stock, other than the surface is nicer to touch, as it has a slighty give to it.

Covering them however, makes them much much stronger and no need for rear re-enforcements.

 

so what happens if you have surrounds that are already cracked. Ive used epoxy and it looks like ****. Sp how do I fix BIG cracks.

88 SE btw

 

You buy another one and try to figure out a way to preserve it, lol. They all seem to crack, I'm just trying to make sure I don't have to buy another one for a long long while.

 

so...where can I buy some radio surrounds. It sounds kina stupid but i have no clue. And not Mazda they're too freaking expensive.

 

Well they have them on ebay alot. They sell them at Mazdatrix.com. I bought mine from someone online, on this forum. They go for like $40-75 usually.

 

If we could ever get somebody to make them in CF...

 

I believe Mazdaspeed7 was doing them or was going to do them. He wanted like $150 for them though. But he does quality work.