June 11, 2025

Turning Light into Sound – Recycling Headlight Buckets into Custom Speaker Pods with Tin Man’s Garage

The crew at Tin Man’s Garage work metal like artists, sometimes repurposing old pieces into new, better fitting components. In this case, Brian Limberg of TMG provided the details on turning a vintage set of headlight buckets into custom speaker pods on a project. Follow along to see how they did it.

As soon as you throw it away, you’re going to need it. That’s a truism most car enthusiasts can relate to. Most of us will admit to saving too many old unusable car parts throughout our lifetimes of repairing, restoring, and customizing old vehicles. These parts fill our garages, storage sheds, attics, and shops.

Of course, all too often when we do finally get around to throwing out that “unnecessary” part, we soon find a use for it and wish we had it back. For the fun little project in this article, we were able to use some original ’57 Ranchero parts that were destined for the scrap pile and repurpose them in a unique way for our latest Cool Ranch build. It was a reward for hanging onto these parts.

: Thin chipboard and polyethylene foam were used to build a mockup speaker and determine the angle the speaker should be mounted at. The OEM cowl behind the kick panels is a single layer of sheet metal where most vehicles have a hollow cavity connecting the A-pillar to the firewall, which allows space for a speaker.

: Chipboard was used again to create a mockup of a “pod” to cover the speaker and protect it from the elements. This design would work but it leaves a lot to be desired from an aesthetic standpoint.

We needed to mount the speakers somewhere and unfortunately the doors were not an option with their inner hinge structure and window workings in the leading edges. We decided to make a mockup speaker from cardboard and foam and then affixed it to the single-layer sheet metal cowl behind the kick panel. We wanted to get an idea if it was feasible to make a “pod” to cover it. Our initial thought was a small rudimentary box, but after mocking that up it was evident that it looked odd and bulky.

At Tin Man’s Garage (TMG), we strive to have our work look like it could have come from the factory, and to avoid having anything that jumps out at you. Chris Tapp handled this project and after he did some brainstorming, he realized a half-sphere shape would be appropriate. He remembered we had the old headlight buckets we were not using and mocked those up with the speaker dimensions. To his surprise they were almost “made for it,” with a bit of modification, of course.

: Original Ranchero headlight buckets were pulled from the “destined to be scrapped” pile. All the mounting tabs were removed by grinding/drilling out the rivets. The flanged edge around the perimeter was also trimmed off. The buckets were sand blasted to remove any rust hiding under the brackets.

: A simple two-piece plywood form was made. The top piece of plywood has a hole cut (sandwich plate) in it with an inside diameter that matches the outside diameter of the speaker “surround” rubber material. Clamps were used in the center to minimize the number of holes to fill afterward. Notice the hydraulic ram is offset to the left side on the thick aluminum (male) plate placed in the circle opening.

He began by filling all the holes that were not used and trimmed the original headlight bucket’s flange to fit the proposed mounting surface. He cut out simple plywood press forms – one with a round hole for the speaker mounting surface, the other with a D-shaped opening. The sheet metal was sandwiched between the two pieces of plywood and bolted together. A scrap piece of thick aluminum plate was found rummaging through our materials bin and was utilized in the hydraulic press to rough shape the indentation/stamping. The press assembly was offset to one side to favor the widest part of the D-shaped form. The angle was chosen by simply stopping the press process when the desired angle was met.

: This is the underside of the pressing form assembly after the process. The bottom piece of plywood has a D-shape (female) cut into it differing from the top (sandwich plate) with a round hole. Offsetting the aluminum (male) press plate helps create the offset angle. The depth for this project was set by the thickness of the plywood and bottomed out on the press’s bed/worktable.

: The wrinkles are the result of excessive material being stretched/pulled in toward the center of the stamping. Press form tooling can be developed to ensure there are no wrinkles if desired. However, the additional cost to create that type of tooling wasn’t worth it for this specific project since the time and expense would far surpass the small amount of time to simply straighten the edges.

The panels were removed from the press assembly and the excess material was cut off. A combination of a kick shrinker, hand tools, and a planishing hammer was used to crisp up the edges and make the wrinkles disappear. After everything was smoothed out the speaker mounting holes were located and some weld-on threaded inserts were installed before final welding the face-mount speaker panels to the cowl. After those were installed the headlight buckets were plug-welded to the cowl. One of my favorite things about our industry is that we typically embrace using old parts in new ways.

: A kick shrinker, hand tools, and a planishing hammer were used to smooth the wrinkles in the flanges. Notice the right one has additional planishing hammer time smoothing the flanges, making it sit flat on the work bench top. The same finishing steps were completed on the left one (roughed-out) before moving to the next step.

: Here are the completed speaker mounts smoothed, sanded, and trimmed to fit the cowl and their predecessor in the background.

: Small indentations were hammered into the speaker mounting panels with a caulking tool before the weld-on threaded nut plates were installed to the backsides. We try not to use sheet metal screws for installation of components when possible because screws have hidden expiration dates.

: We used Clecos to locate the speaker panels and plug welded them because our spot welder arms would not reach around the A-pillar. We used aluminum foil to protect the wiring loom from MIG welding sparks. The welds were sanded flush and weld-through primer was used between each surface before final installation.

: The modified headlight buckets were plug welded and the welds were sanded smooth. Additional inner fender panels will be fabricated to completely seal off this area from water and debris when driving.

: Here’s the exterior view of the passenger side completed speaker pod below the neatly hidden A/C and heater hoses passing through under the dash.