Dant

Hey guys! I've been looking all over the forum on how to remove the radio and have come up dry. The radio is extremely quiet when turned to the maximum volume, I saw a thread where someone had a similar problem and decided it was the output transistor? Which I believe is a TO-3 type. My plan was to remove the radio and take it to the old radio repair shop in town. If anybody could give me a step by step radio removal procedure it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Dan

oldspackrat

Pull hard on the outer **** & the inner flat *****. There may be a small wave washer between the two if the radio has never been out before. Once you do that, there are two flat washers holding the stems in the dash. They are easily removed with a pair of pliers, or a 9/16?? socket.
If your car has AC, you will want to remove the long plastic under dash vent assembly. It's held in with either 1/4" hex heads, or phillips screws. Also, if AC, you'll have to pull the flat black plastic duct under the column & the dist. manifold coming off the heater box. You'll need a phillips for the column duct, & a 5/16" for the manifold, assuming none of this has been messed with before. Pay attention to how these come out, as they are easily broken when taken out or installed. If you don't have AC, Just skip to the section below.
Remove the power & speaker plug from the left rear of the radio & the antenna lead from the right side. They both just pull out. There is a small metal bracket on the right side of the radio that is held to the bottom of the dash with a 1/4" bolt? or a 11/32"? nut on the side of the radio. There also maybe a long, thin plastic strap on that metal bracket. You'll see/feel it if it's there. You might want to leave the nuts on the stems on the outside of the dash until you get everything else removed, as it will almost fall out when you get this far.
Good luck.

Dant

Thanks pulled it out in about 5 minutes and am taking it over to the shop this week. I'll post how it turns out.

Thanks alot!
Dan

Dant

The radio guy said that the radio was fine so now I'm a little lost. What do you guys think the problem is? Speakers? Help!

Dan

jaunty75

This shouldn't be too hard to determine. What else could it be? I presume your radio guy hooked it up to a speaker as part of his test, and it played fine. So take out the speaker under the dash and replace it with a known good one. That's the only other thing that could be wrong, assuming the wiring is OK.

Is the speaker original? If so, it's very possible that the cone is dried to a crisp and possibly cracked. That would mean there was nothing to vibrate, and the level of sound it could produce would be very low. You might be surprised what a new speaker can do.

Boiler_81

Agree, toasted front speakers due to drying and rotting of the cone is very common on these cars.

Lady72nRob71

And in your quest for a speaker, use an original type 10 ohm unit. An 8 Ohm will work in a pinch, but never use a 4 Ohm as that can cause damage to the radio's output transistor.

Dant

Would it be cheaper to order a replacement speaker or to get the original repaired or reconed?

Boiler_81

A couple of options:
http://www.turnswitch.com/speakers.htm
http://www.reconingspeakers.com/prod...rd-recone-kit/

Also search Google with the terms: speaker recone 4x10

Dant

Thanks, that was helpful. How do I remove the speaker is it just the two bolts on opposite ends of the speaker? How would I disconnect the speaker wire from the back of the speaker?

Thanks,
Dan

jaunty75

It would probably cost 10 times as much to get it reconed. (Actually, I don't know, but I have to believe it would cost more than what you would pay for a single replacement speaker.) And there would be no reason to, anyway. It wasn't a terribly expensive or fancy speaker to begin with. Get another one of the same size at a local car stereo store, Best Buy, or anyplace that sells car audio.

As far as getting the old one out, this should be obvious once you actually look at it from the back side. The speaker is most likely oblong (6 inches by 9 inches or something like that), and there will be one screw at each corner. Your new speaker, if it's the same size, might very well have mounting holes in the same places, and you can just screw the new one right in. If not, you may have to be clever in figuring out how to mount it.

One thing you can do is take the old speaker to the store with you and try to get a new one with the mounting holes in the same locations.

Getting the old wires off will also be self-explanatory once you see the back of the speaker. Either the wires are hard-soldered to the speaker terminals, or they've got lugs on the ends that slide over little spade-like pins. I'm guessing the former. If they're hard soldered, you can either melt the solder with a soldering iron, or just cut the wires right at the terminals. There's no reason not to cut them if you plan to just throw the old speaker away.

As far as matching up the resistances, yes, the old speakers are usually 10 ohms, but I've never had a problem using 8-ohm speakers. If that does concern you, and you can't find 10 ohm new ones, you might just go to Radio Shack and get a 2-ohm resistor and put it in series with the speaker.

Boiler_81

Adding a two ohm resistor is not what you want to do. The measurement of speakers is impedance which is not the same as resistance. I would get a correct 10 ohm replacement or get yours reconed.

It has been so long since I removed a front speaker I don't remember the details of it's attachment. I do know I had the radio and glove box liner out when I did remove mine.

Dant

Picked up the radio from the radio guy, he seems to think that it's an antenna issue based on the fact that I can still hear sound but it's barley audible. I checked the antenna cable and it's in good shape, he also said I should check the antenna ground. I am very new at this, how would I check the antenna ground and fix it if somthing was wrong?

jaunty75

Yeah, so my idea was not good. I've never actually done this. I just always wondered why you couldn't. Now I know.

As I said, though, I HAVE replaced 10 ohm speakers with 8 ohm over the years, and I've never had a problem with the radio not working properly or failing on me.

Lady72nRob71

Withthe antenna disconnected from radio, connect an ohmmeter - one lead to the outer metal contact of the antenna plug and the other lead to the cars chassis ground (dash or metal brackets). Reading should be 0 Ohms ideally, but under 3 is good.

Do you have a windshield antenna? It is possible the fine wires coming out of the glass have broke...

Dant

The antenna is good. I'm going back to the speaker theory. After about 2 hours I finally pulled out the speaker screws! I'm thinking about ordering a speaker from electro-tech. Is there a better way to install the speaker I'd like to remove the front bench but I'm not sure how. Has anyone had experience with electro- tech? How do I remove the front bench seat?

Thanks,
Dan

jaunty75

Get under there and look!

It's bolted to the floor, probably on two tracks, one at each end of the seat. Those are what it slides back and forth on. I've removed several front bench seats in my time, and, while it's simple in principle (just unscrew those bolts), in practice it can be a bit of a pain because it's large and unwieldy. If your car is a convertible, getting the seat out of the car is easy. But if it's not, it can be somewhat tricky to maneuver it out the door.

Why do you want to remove it, anyway? To make it easier to get under the dash, or because you want to run wires under the carpet? I can understand wanting to remove it so you don't have to contort yourself into strange positions to reach up under the dash, but, in my experience, the pain-in-the-neckness of removing the seat outweighs the discomfort in reaching up under the dash with the seat in place. If you're doing it because you want to run wires, I would just run them along the outer edge of the floor. You can tuck them up under the sill plates so that you don't see them.

Dant

Hey guys just wanted to update, I got the new speaker from electro- tech successfully installed and hooked up to the radio. Everything works great, I can enjoy talk radio and country music now!

Thanks for the help,
Dan

jaunty75

You went to all this trouble for talk radio? Man, that's dedication!!!


What you SHOULD have done is hang one of these from the rearview mirror!

Dant

It sure beats the wind blowing through the weatherstripping!