Replaced Radio

[Norm's Coupe]

When I was rewiring my fuel gauge about a month ago I decided to leave the radio out of the car. It keeps getting in my way when I want to go under there for something. I've had it in and out 3 times in the past year. However, didn't want to put just a delete plate in it's place. Was going to pick up an old radio someplace and just use the head off it to fill the hole in the dash. Then I found this NOS Dummy Radio Head and made a deal on it. While the wife was fixing dinner decided to see how it fit. Fits like it belongs. Thought I would need to make a bracket to hold it in but the knob nuts pulled it nice and tight, so no need for the bracket. 5 minutes and it was installed in the car. No push buttons, but that's ok. Will run a light to it later so it lights up, has a hole to accept a socket, and I have several extra dash sockets laying around.

[John Mulders]

Looks good Norm, I just put the old radio back in (doesn't work).

Maybe an idea to only use the front and have a modern radio behind it?

anyone done that?

Not for me for a while, radio is at the bottom of the list

John

[Norm's Coupe]

John,

Actually, you could put a real radio in the glove box or anywhere and still have just the head in the dash. I don't play radios in the car though, so doesn't matter to me. If you look at the radios you'll see that the whole front box with the dial and buttons just bolts on the rest of the radio. So it would be real easy to use the front off another radio. Nice thing about this setup is that you don't even have to crawl under the dash to install it. Just reach your hand under the dash and slide it in while you sit in the seat. It'll come out just as easy if you want to remove it for some reason later. My old radio didn't work either.

[BobT-47P15]

I still have the actual original radio in place, but it is indeed in the way of doing certain things. It is not currently working, which is OK. What I did do was replace the original speaker with a later model one, attached a two conductor speaker wire with a miniature jack on the end to plug into a boom box sitting in the rear floor. Just ran the wire under the carpet. Or you could run a similar wire to the glove box if a player is in there. Amuse the folks at the shows with your "working" radio playing oldies tunes.