Thought it would be useful to post my experiences with replacing the grill pegs on my 3 year old 25 Anniversary Sapphires. I inadvertantly broke two of them off when I dropped one of my speaker grills onto a hardwood floor. They broke off at the plastic stem which holds the round bulb of the peg to the plastic base holding the peg in the wooden grill frame.
I sent an email to ACI asking whether it would be possible to get replacement grill pegs. I wasn't sure since these (wonderful) speakers are now out of production. Those XLs must be some speakers to be better than the 25th Anniversaries. I offered to pay for the pegs, but Jake at ACI sent me 4 replacement pegs for free! The new pegs come not only with the peg part but also with the plastic receiver cup that goes into the speaker. The plastic cup did not need to be replaced. They come mated together so you have to separate the two in order to just use the peg part.
Here is what I did to replace them.
I first tried to pry out the broken off peg base, but with little success. The pegs are not glued in, but are held in very well by friction. I soon realized that I might damage the particle board grill frame if I persisted. I used an electric drill to drill out the bases of the old pegs from the back. This required inserting a slim strap of scrap metal between the grill fabric and the wooden frame to stop the drill from going all the way through and damaging the cloth. Because the plastic grill peg base is slippery, I used a nail and hammer to create a starter hole, then a small drill bit to enlarge and deepen this hole, and finally a larger bit to drill out the base. The starter holes are needed because the wooden grill frame is only particle board and the drill would make mince-meat out of it if the bit slipped off and hit it.
Fortunately, the base of the peg is not glued into the wooden frame, so once drilled out properly, I was able to get the old pieces of the base out with some needle-nosed pliers and a vacuum cleaner. I inserted the new pegs in the wooden frame and hammered them into place with a small hammer using the head of a nail as a driver. You cannot hammer the peg directly because this would just break the bulb again!
Once the new pegs were in place, the grill fit perfectly onto the speaker once again.
Thanks ACI for the usual grrrr-eat service!
