Recone - Can I do it? (1 Viewer)

My KSW-12 (klipsch powered sub) has been out of commission for some time now, I finally decided to make a couple calls today to see what I can do about it.

Apparently Klipsch won't do any repairs on it, so they gave me a number for a service center that they use called sybesma's. This place being in Michigan and me in california, would create insane shipping charges including insurance I would pay both ways, plus 120 dollars for a recone (it's making a grinding sound when it's playing so i'm assuming VC is toast)

I'm thinking somewhere in the realm of 300 + dollars to fix it and they only warranty for 90 days. I'm not sure that's worth it to me, but maybe it is? Anyone think it's worth that price?

Is this something I could do myself? I'd like to say that i'm moderatly to highly mechanically inclined, good at taking things apart and putting them back together, and I have a garage full of all kinds of tools.

Thanks for any input you can provide.

-Matt

Will the repair place send you a recone kit? If yes, then you must clean up your existing driver by removing all of the old moving parts. With an exacto knive you will cut through the surround and the spider as well as clip the tinsel leads. The cone and other moving parts will lift out. From here, I usually use a razor scraper and clean up any left over parts of the surround and spider. Finally, I hit the surround and spider landings with a grinder to remove the CA glue and get down to bare metal. De-solder the tinsel leads from the terminals. With a clean basket, installing a recone kit takes 10 minutes. There are numerous YouTube videos on the process.

If they don't send a kit, they may send the individual parts and you will have to build the kit. Here is how I did something similar. http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y78/rlj5242/Custom%20Sub%201/?albumview=slideshow

Are there any steps more difficult than others or anything I need to watch out for as a first timer? Seems pretty basic so far!

Keep the voice coil gap of the motor clean while you are in tear-down mode. Once the old cone is removed, put blue painter's tape over the gap so nothing falls in it.