Don't kill yourself. Those speakers aren't even wired in stereo. They're mono running off of the right channel.For those who have a later W163 with the D-pillar speakers, or crazy people (like me) who are retrofitting them into an earlier ML, there is finally a replacement for the 2.75" Bose drivers: the Kicker KSC270. KICKER | KS Series 2.75" Mid
Kicker says they're not currently available for sale, but a number of retailers have them in stock. I found them at the semi-annual tent sale held by the car audio shop around the corner from my house. The salesman and I pulled them out of the box and compared them with one of the Bose drivers, and the dimensions are within tiny percentage of being identical.
The Kicker drivers require mounting rings, and none of them appear to fit the speaker mounting plate once the heat-peened pins are ground off, separating the drivers from the mounting plates. I plan to cut the flanges off of the Bose drivers and use them as mounting rings, as well as remove the "spiderweb" of plastic over the speaker cone. The grilles are protection enough for the cones. To re-assemble everything, I think I'm going to drill the old pins completely off of the plastic mounting plates, and countersink flat-head machine screws into the front of the plate. In order to make the little guys useful, I will be wiring them to the rear speaker outputs of my new head unit's internal amplifier. The main door speakers will be powered by an external amp mounted in the stock amp location. For the sake of not reinventing the wheel, I may re-use some of the CD changer wiring to get the left and right signals to the rear of the car, rather than running all-new wires. That's still up in the air.
Pictures to come as I get them mounted.
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