VW Golf Mk3 1996 Build From England

[Daniel Brill-Edwards]

Add a drill and a wire brush wheel:

First time soldering 0 gauge!!

[Daniel Brill-Edwards]

It’s the return of my helpful workmate Oscar

The grey 0 gauge already had a terminal at each end so I decided to leave them on and use it for the ANL fuse. But of course I cant just have a wire crimped so I filled them and a connector in the middle with solder and then put heatshrink over it

I ripped my hands raw pulling the heatshrink down 3m of cable – especially as there were some bits which had had duct tape on them and were sticky as a result!!

[Daniel Brill-Edwards]

Soldering the grey positive wire

And the blue grounding wire

Grounding location

Add an 8mm drill and the wire wheel treatment

The amp came with some sticky foam feet protectors and some screws

[Daniel Brill-Edwards]

Making the fuse holder and buss bolt holder

I drilled a hole through, then used a butterfly bit to make the hole a bit wider, put the bolt all the way through and covered the head with wood filler.

[Daniel Brill-Edwards]

[Daniel Brill-Edwards]

Glued

And screwed

Running the grey positive wire

This is the handiest tool in the world for pulling wires through

[Daniel Brill-Edwards]

Soldering the 4 gauge from the buss bolts to the amp

Checking for length

And snip

Tidying up wires

[Daniel Brill-Edwards]

Making negative battery cables

And the short positive run from the trip switch to the positive buss bolt

And the finished thing

[Daniel Brill-Edwards]

From above

My view in the rear view mirror

My control panel

Difference between completely empty and with the sub, box, amp. Wire and batteries in:

[Daniel Brill-Edwards]

And full

(I thought it would be more than that)

Well there you have it. This build has taken a long time to complete. I have been listening to it though in between – first I had my dads 200W amp running off one of the 17ah batteries (which I had to change at the end of every journey). Then for T-18 I lashed up the new amp with 8 gauge wire and it did 135.4db!! It has been a great experience and although I’ve finished it 2 weeks before I go to Uni I will still have it for when I come home.

The best part about this build has been the money ive saved and the knowledge I’ve gained on the way. All in this build was just under £300 which is thanks to buying second hand and careful browsing

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Some people may think I have too many pictures but this is exactly how I learnt everything I know – from reading hundreds of build logs and watching thousands of youtube videos. It was Steve Meades videos that got me really interested in car audio and I hope to have a system to rival his someday

Thanks to Matt Sprigg and Am Singh whose massive builds inspired me

Daniel Brill-Edwards