<VV> Radio upgrade

[Tony Underwood]

At 08:10 hours 06/11/2005, Norman C. Witte wrote:


>I have been considering options for upgrading or replacing my factory radio.
>I have always been torn on this one.  I do not see a way to get truly good
>sound in a Corvair without making permanent mods and losing the stock look.
>On the other hand I would like to have FM available and better electronics
>than what the factory radio had to offer.  I came across this, which I
>thought was quite interesting:
>
>http://www.antiqueautomobileradio.com/stereoF.htm
>
>This company takes your original radio--could be AM or AM/FM, doesn't
>matter--and guts it, replacing the chassis with a four channel, digitally
>tuned AM/FM tuner.  The look stays absolutely stock and it can be run in
>mono mode.
>
>I was wondering if anyone has done this.




Having been in the business, I've done this a time or two, got a bunch of 
older factory AM/FM radios on hand in various stages of dismantlement 
etc.   Since a  Vair AM radio is NOT small, there's lots of stuff available 
that will fit inside if you're willing to crank out a little ingenuity and 
fortitude.   I put Japanese AM/FM radio innards into an AM chassis a time 
or two, had luck there.   I also did some bezel and shaft swapping, putting 
a later vintage AM/FM Delco radio together with a Vair radio front bezel 
and chassis pan.   You use the "cheap" 2700 series Delco AM/FM radios which 
were available in both mono and stereo variants.    Simple chassis, easy to 
work with, but they have narrower chassis/shaft spacing so  they don't fit 
a Vair escutcheon...  but their innards can be fitted into a Vair radio 
chassis if you do some whittling.    The balking point is the audio output 
in these radios... an almost impossible to find DM-165...  earlier versions 
use a DM-133 which is a little easier to turn up but still not common 
outside Delco service shop territory and even then they're 
expensive.   Moral of story:  Do not short speaker wires to ground or to 
each other, or else.

I also once swapped an old '60s vintage Caddy AM/FM into a Vair chassis, or 
rather swapped the Vair bezel onto the Caddy radio.   Worked nicely, looked 
like a stock (early) Vair radio but you had to guess where the FM stations 
were since there was only the stock AM dial.   This radio changed bands by 
pressing the left and right preset buttons so no extra switches need to be 
dealt with.

Another method I've done *Once* is to use a later vintage Delco digital 
display AM/FM and swap the insides into a Vair AM radio.   It takes some 
ingenuity and some fabrication to do switches and controls but it's 
do'able.   The digital display hides behind the stock Vair radio display, 
easy to see in dim light, not quite so easy in brighter light.    It's a 
labor of love to do one of these from scratch, no wonder some places get 
<400 bucks to do it.   And that's with your AM as a core.

I recently kinda took a hiatus from doing automotive audio work but now I'm 
getting back into it again.   I've lately been giving some thought to doing 
some of these Vair AM's up with AM/FM Stereo internals just to see how well 
I could make it work.  Again, it's not easy but it's not impossible either, 
IF you  have an electronics background and you have  lots of donor radios 
on hand.

All it takes is time...  :)    I'm currently wasting most of my available 
time making a living at work, leaving the remainder for piddling with Vair 
projects.   Maybe I'll see what I can cook up after dark in the radio 
shop...   next week sometime I need to go by a buddy's workplace and pick 
up a batch of older vintage car radios he wants to be rid of, condition 
unknown, many of them factory radios... he deals with used cars, has for 
many years, these are mostly things he got with car trades, left in trunks 
etc after the owner had replaced the factory radio with something from 
Wal-Mart or somewhere.   I'm curious to see what he has...   parts is 
parts...    ;)


tony..