4 replies to this topic

[Joloke08]

Im thinking of going a bit Retro with Boris and fitting an Old School Car radio rarther than the Modern CD head unit we currently have

Ive been looking at old Radio Only Car Radios and noticed old Blaupunkt units have Aux input allready

However these tend to go for silly ammounts like £100 plus

Theres also a Vintage Wireless Place that can convert your exsisting Radios but again you end up with a radio thats cost you Hundreds

Theres also the Retro Sounds system (again Hundreds )

Which Leads me to the Question if the Vintage Wireless place can convert any old car radio to give an Aux imput can i do it myself?

Im quite Handy with a Soldering Iron all i need is some sort of Guide and to know what sort of Bits i need to get from Maplin

Has anybody here ever done this?

Id much rarther buy a cheapy Retro Motorola,Radiomobile,or even a standard Mini Radio from a car boot and do this myself if i can rarther than spend hundred on it



the above one is allready converted but a whopping £220


Can Anybody Help?

Huggz
Jodie

Edited by Joloke08, 14 March 2010 - 01:49 PM.

[Ethel]

no point in fiddling with a radio unless it has FM.

You could run a separate amp hidden somewhere, or use one of those FM transmitter jobbies on your MP3 player. you'll even get retro sound quality

[pbrain]

you can insert an audio signal to an old HU, you'll need to look carefully at the circuit board and locate the 'pre-amplifier' section of the circuit, here you could solder a set of leads to inject the signal. however, you'd also have to cut the tracks from the reciever and solder a dual switch to turn on & off the radio part.

I wouldn't bother (the old HU's internal amp is going to be pants!), pull the guts out of the old HU, and use it for a front-end, keeping the dials etc for volume and source select. You can replace the worn volume pot for a new one and using fly-leads connect it to the aux-jack and back out to a hidden amp.

[Joloke08]

you can insert an audio signal to an old HU, you'll need to look carefully at the circuit board and locate the 'pre-amplifier' section of the circuit, here you could solder a set of leads to inject the signal. however, you'd also have to cut the tracks from the reciever and solder a dual switch to turn on & off the radio part.

I wouldn't bother (the old HU's internal amp is going to be pants!), pull the guts out of the old HU, and use it for a front-end, keeping the dials etc for volume and source select. You can replace the worn volume pot for a new one and using fly-leads connect it to the aux-jack and back out to a hidden amp.

Thanks
i did consider ditching the amplifier section in favour of another but building another inside,im not after a super loud system our current head unit is just 20w rms and that suits our needs

if i were to do that could i still keep the radio section?

anobody have any photos or diagrams showing exactly how you do the mods?

[pbrain]

you'll have to have a look inside, it could be all discreet components or if it's a later model, it may well use amplifier chips, there will be a reference code on the chip ie TDA2040. You can do a search on 'net for a pinout diagram and it'll show what each bit does etc. Some of the older Maplin catalogs had diagrams for several common chip amplifiers.

Ideally you want to connect the audio into the pre-amp section, unless you want volume control purely from Ipod, MP3 etc.

I've got a couple of these old stereo's in the shed...i was going to bin them recently, i may have a look and have a go at converting it