Yes, I kept my original 3.5 door speakers, but I unplugged and removed the center channel speaker from the dash. I think the stereo sounds much better without it. The B&O tweeters and mid bass woofers are wired together in parallel, so I just ran new wires for the Hertz tweeters. They bring a much cleaner and crisper sound to the table and the center channel speaker isn’t missed at all.
If you order from Crutchfield they will send you brackets and a factory style pigtail/connector. I simply drilled a hole in each speaker bracket, ran new speaker wire (soldered to all speaker terminals; although you could use female spade connectors if you wish), routed the speaker wire out of the hole In each bracket and added male and female spade connectors on the supplied Crutchfield pigtails and speaker wires and then plugged the pigtail/connector up to the factory connector on both doors. Look closely at this pic and you can see the new speaker wire exiting the hole that I drilled in the mounting bracket, followed by he red spade connectors (I used two male and two female spade connectors) which are connected to the positive and negative speaker wires, as well as the positive and negative wires on the pigtail/connector which is shown plugged into the factory connector (off white connector on the door).
I’ve never had thst happen in all the years of buying from them. They always include the free brackets and adapter harnesses (AKA pigtail connectors). You can also order them separately from their website if you like, just In case they don’t send them. Otherwise you will have to tap into the positive and negative speaker wires in each door.
They fit perfectly. You can’t even tell that they’re in there because the factory grill fits over top of them. i did use hot glue around the backside of the tweeters to prevent any possible movement or rattles.
No DreMel work needed. They literally fit in there snug, although you can still rotate them. I aligned mine perfectly and then hot glued because I knew it was such a PITA messing around with the A-pillars, that I didn’t want to have to go back in there again (at least not anytime soon).
Yes, definitely worth the effort. As far as panel R&R tricks, the only thing I can tell you is; work carefully during reinstallation, as there is one tab on the A-pillar (at the bottom which goes into a slot in the dash) that may want to avoid going into it’s slot. I used a plastic angled trim panel tool to coax it into the slot. Be VERY patient here!
When do you expect to have it all wrapped up? Have you figured out a way to get the bass from the drunk into your cabin? I’ve always heard that was a challenge with verts.