ok, here is the deal. im restoring my buick back to as close of factory specs as possible so that means no obvious aftermarket stuff. the car is only for shows and cruises, but having a FM/CD capable headunit would be a nice thing to have. i think ill just mount it in the glovebox but here is my thing. since im keeping everything origional with the factory AM radio and 8 track, i want them to still work. can i splice into the OEM speaker wires with my new headunit and be able to run everything without issue? i know i cant use both radios at teh same time (doy!), just dont want any feedback. would a diode need to be installed inline somewhere? also what about the antenna wire? is there a splitter i can buy/make? thanks guys!
Byron, Hello! Nice to see another '64 big car owner. It is possible to install two radios at one time, but there are a few hiccups that pertain to our cars. The biggest is the speaker. The factory speaker up front is a 10 ohm unit, while all speakers for automobiles nowadays are 4 ohm units. I've seen people replace the standard oval speaker with 2 small 3 inch speakers for stereo. If you hook a 4 ohm speaker to the Delco radio designed for a 10 ohm speaker, the output transistor will be short lived. Putting an 8 ohm speaker to a 10 ohm speaker will generally not hurt anything. HERE is a link talking about speakers. What I would do if I wanted to go this route is play fun with resistance. I would buy this speaker kit to mount in the factory front hole: This kit is two 4 ohm speakers that fit in the same hole as the original 4x10 we have. I would then install a switch so that I could have stereo using two 4 ohm speakers when listening to the new radio, and then with a flip of the switch the speakers would be put in series, raising their impedence to 8 ohms, and playing mono from my factory deck! Wiring is not a pain; you just need to find a reliable source of 12 volts that is not switched with the ignition. The glove box light circuit may be useful for the memory lead of the new radio. The antenna can be split by buying Motorola connectors (this is what your antenna lead terminates into) and making your own splitter with one female and two male connectors. Only problem is you lose half your signal each time you split, which will probably not be detectable on FM but could be on AM. I would buy a remote controllable radio and put it in the glovebox like you said along with an impedence/mono/stereo switch. Best of luck!
Attached is a schematic for the factory to aftermarket impedance switch. What I have labeled S1 can either be a double pole quadruple throw toggle switch, or a relay.
hrrrrm, mighty confusing there haha. im by no means an expert on wiring or figuring ohms or anything like that. things like alarms, standard headunits, things of that nature are more along my lines. i have been thinking about it and i think ill just keep my factory speakers for my factory radio, and hide some new speakers for my new headunit. iv figured i can hide the rear speakers (probably 6x9's) easily in the rear deck. as far as the fronts, gonna be a bit more work. im thinking about trying to hide them behind the carpet near the vents in the kick panels. that or put them behind the carpet on the lower part of the door skin. i just dont want them showing anywhere. i do thank you very much for your imput..and hopefully it can answer the questions to others who search. maybe someone more electronically inclined than me heh. and yeah, not too many of us 60's land yacht's around. but i love mine. sure, not a muscle car...its a totally different experience. long flowing lines, tons of room, all floating down the road. it may not be a gsx, but she sure gets teh looks and gets its share of "wow's". it looks like one of your wildcats shares the same color with my electra. the light blue? im referring to the one in your sig.
I'm not sure what your underside of your dash is set up like but here is my answer. I put a CD deck in my Glovebox and left the old one. The old one is still hooked up tot he original center speaker. In 71, stereo speakers were an option so I had th emountaing brackets for two int he trunk and two more in the dash. So I hooked up new speakers to the new stereo and left all of the old stuff alone.
I went the Ipod route along with a good set of speakers. Attached is an article I wrote up for the last issue in the BPG's Buildsheet.
OK, I'm pretty green when it comes to this new tech stuff, so this is probably a dumb question, but how does the iPod/iTrip connect to the radio? Or does it?
As the article mentions, it doesn't physically connect, it transmits on a radio frequency just like any other radio station you would pick up.
I have been trying to figure out how to make the iPod work for my situation which is that I have an AM Radio, not one of those fancy newfangled Am/Fm thingys. If the resistance was the same or close, could a headphone jack be spliced into the speaker lead? That way I could just plug the iPod in and I am good to go. Found out that they do not show output info for the iPod unit itself, but they do list an impedance rating of 32ohms for the tiny earbud headphones. Is this too far off from the 10ohm rating of the stock in-dash speaker unit?
You cannot splice a line level into a speaker level, as the impedence is usually vastly different, like 32 or 50 ohms compared to 4 ohms for a modern car stereo. What you would actally need to get an iPod to play through an AM radio would be an AM modulator, that works just like an FM modulator. Problem is, I don't think these are produced commercially any more. In my AM-only Wildcat, I have a small box that is an FM radio tuner that outputs on AM around 1100. If I wanted to play a CD, I could play it on a Discman, modulate it to 88.1 on an FM modulator, pick it up with my FM tuner that would then modulate it to 1100 AM on my factory radio. uzzled:
With the switch to the 2 4-ohm speakers, why not just leave them separate and put inline resistors before the spliced connection?
Each radio has an effective output impedance measured in ohms. In order to optimize the output --in this case the audio volume -- this unit's impedance must be matched to the agggregate impedance of the load --in this case the speakers. Often trandformers were use to accomplish matching. Thus, you see transformers even mounted to the speakers themselves. We call those matching transformers. Even after being optimized for efficiency and audio output these factory systems still have very little excess output capacity. When you add speakers (additional load) to the circuit in a way such that the load no longer matches the output load of the unit, the effect on the radio's performance can be dramatic. Most often the radio's output will no longer be optimized and the maximum volume attainable will be insufficient. There are companies that will put a unit with modern features inside your original case. That would seem to be a cleaner solution.
So many good ideas here. I like the IPod for simplicity. The switch would also work, I would worry that the switching would be confusing to someone that is not techincal. If I were to go that route, I think I would use a relay to do the switching, it would avoid confusion. You just need to make sure that the amps outputs are never left unloaded or be able to disable one or the other so that it's not possible to turn them both on at the same time. Why not use an amp? Use a two channel for mono operation. A three or 4 channel for factory mono and aftermarket Stereo. Or two amps to ensure isolation and no ground loops. Use high to low level convertors into the input. I would still use a relay to make sure that both are not on at the same time. Channel 1 - Factory radio Channel 2 & 3 - Aftermarket Outputs - to either the same speaker, (use a relay, complicates things) or to different speakers. Say channel 1 factory radio and front speaker. Channel 2 & 3 aftermarket to a pair of 6X9 in the rear deck. Here is the level converter: http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=265-025 If anyone needs help in the Mlps/St Paul area, I'd be gald to assist. I've been in electroincs longer than I care to remember and build and repair electronics as a hobby, speaker building, custom cabinets. Rich
Rich, If I understand you correctly, the idea is to run the output from the factory stereo (head unit) and whatever else (aftermarket stereo/CD, iPod, etc.) through the amp as well to whatever speaker configuration meets your needs? In my case, I could run the output from my am radio through these converters into an amp, then if I want to run a modern head unit or an iPod I just need to make sure that the amp has the proper input jacks correct? This seems to be just what I was looking for.... A final question. Can the output from the amp be run to speakers with different resistance? For example, if i wanted to stick with the original in-dash speaker and install some other speakers in the back somewhere?
The perfect solution? I was at the local Circuit City yesterday, pushing buttons, of course. I was impressed by this: http://www.consumer.philips.com/con...&proxybuster=FVYKEZJ2CB3P3J0RMRESHP3HKFSEKI5P Long URL. www.philips.com, look for the Shoqbox, 256M MP3/ FM/ Clock. For it's small size, sounds impressive. A boom box that fits in your hand. Rich
