Slick 60's

Anyone know of a good writeup for doing this? I'm thinking this would be the best route for to get some music in the truck without cutting anything up.

Been there done that, got the wounds to prove it. What I did to mine was as follows. I used the original AM radio in the dash. I then put on a reverb unit from the 60s. You can watch ebay,they show up a few times a month. The reverb is nothing more than a echo chamber that gives you 2 speaker outputs. I then got a old power booster from the 70s. The type that does not have a floating ground. You use the trucks ground for the speaker ground. I got one for 5 bucks on ebay. Newer ones will burn up. This gives you a good boost after the reverb unit. It will work without it but I got it anyway. I then got a fm converter box that you can add to a am radio. I got it years ago for 5 bucks. You can find these on ebay. Next you can get a mp3 to fm adapter from walmart for 30 bucks. You just take your favorite mp3s and save to a jump drive and play them. A ipod will also plug into the mp3 adapter. As far as the playing its great and gives it a 60s Beach Boys sound due to the reverb. By the way the Beach boys sound was perfected to play on reverb units. Don't get this setups sound confused with am radio stations. It sounds a lot like the fm original radios with no static . It has a mellow 60s sound. You will have people getting excited more about its sound than a "thumper" sound. Its really in a class all by itself. It has a vintage 60s feel to it. Give you an idea of how it plays I can hear it over my engine at 55 mph with glass packs that end underneath the bed. The reason I liked this setup is that I keep the radio original and can hear something other than AM. Plus I have only about 60 bucks in it that includes the cost of a set of 3 way speakers. You get a lot of thumbs up pulling in somewhere with the reverb going playing a mp3 of "hot rod lincoln" You can see pictures of the setup at the link below. Don't let the wires scare you, there was a lot of wires in that picture than the radio stuff. This was taken before I tied down all my wires.

http://groups.msn.com/TNSlicks/wills2.m ... PhotoID=77

I have a cassette player in my fairlane and use a cassette CD adapter.
My iPod hooks to that.


Here's what NOT to do.
PO hacked this in



I thought about adding an amp with two speakers and run a stereo headphone jack OUT to L and R RCAs IN and plug that into the amp.
Then just use the iPod for the head unit. May work, may not

I also had a '77 280Z I didn't want to mess with the origonal system but wanted to play CD's (same concept as your mp3) with a portable cd player

I bought a compact amp/equalizer with a input jack on the front of it and used a doulble male cable. mounted it under the seat and installed speakers where they were not visible. I set the volume on the amp about half way and then controlled the volume on the cd player. Not sure if something like that amp is still avalable though?

PLease don't Knock the 280Z I was young and it was only my third vehicle BUT in good company. 1st vehicle was a "dent" 2nd a "dent" 3rd the 280 4th a "dent" . Besides it was cool and FAST!

Thanks for the input so far. I probably ought to give a little more info on what I'm after. I have no radio in the truck, and want to keep it with no holes in the dash. I'm thinking something small like an MP3 or something else that will fit in the ashtray, or if not there, then in the glove box. I'd like to avoid a radio totally, if that's possible.

I have a spare set of metal door panels for mounting speakers. think I might prefer mounted under the dash pointing down, or somewhere else hidden.

A reverb would be cool, I'd want it hidden though.

Sounds like at the minimum I need a music source (MP3), an amp (what type?), 2 speakers, wiring, fuses.

you can go to secret audio. you put the little dealie up on your sunvisor and it is out of sight, completely.
http://www.soundmove.com/secretaudio.htm

I am running a late 90's Ford van radio under the seat, it fits snug on the floor. The big button controls were just what I wanted. One knob for the volume, big button presets, all reached from driving position. For the antenna, I ran bell wire up to the back window and under the seal. A pair of outdoor-type bookshelf speakers under the seat, not the best place but it works well. Using my iPod with the FM converter sitting in the seat beside me, can put it in the glovebox if needed. I had the same thing, a non-radio dash, and needed to keep it clean. You actually have to look from the floorboard from outside to see anything, but there's no mistaking the sounds of the Rev Horton Heat coming from there, even at speed.
Circuit City had the plug to mate to the back of the radio, was the most expensive part of the whole project, everything else was Goodwill/X-mas/scrounge stuff.

Not willing to cut my dash or doors either, I made these panels to insert in place of the metal door access panels.

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I placed an amp under the seat, ran the wires from the amp, under the carpet, to the door speakers, and plugged an AM/FM/MP3 player into the amp. I just lay the MP3 player on the seat next to me, and I can listen to any station, or change the Minidiscs in my player (a Sony Minidisc player), and away I go. I got the Sony Minidisc, because I liked the features. The iPods are probably much better a choice, especially if you can get one with AM/FM, too.

It is extremely therapeutic to cruise with tunes, and enjoy the sounds of the Slick, and the music of your choice.

Happy motoring.

Dan

I prefer to listen to Hooker supercomps and an H pipe anyway

Amen to that.

I ran my uni for 2 years without a radio, never missed it.
My Bricklin radio is stuck on some BC station that I don't get here. Don"t miss it either. Nothing sweeter than the music of a Ford V8 IMO.

another option would be to simply buy a new model stereo that supports MP3 players, (most of them do now) and get one that comes with a remote. (most of them do that now too) Then just hide the stereo under the seat and use the remote for it.

Thats got to be the ONLY use I've ever thought of for one of those silly remotes I mean I could never understand hunting down a car remote when youre sitting half an arms length away from the stereo itself.

I'll do some research on it. There is an tech article on Fordmuscle that is along the lines I'm thinking off, but I'm not a paying subscriber so I'm blocked from 2 out of 3 pages. It's probably out there on some other site.

I got a couple of am/fm cass radios, maybe I just ought to give in and use one of those.

Here is my solution. I fabricated these kick panels from aluminum and covered them with 1/8" landau foam and vinyl to hold a pair of 5 1/4" Polk Audio speakers. The way they are formed the fresh air vent still works just fine.

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Then I built a subwoofer box that bolts to the back wall of the cab. I used it for a platform to build my arm rest on.

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The amplifier is a Rockford Fosgate Punch four chanel with the rear channel bridged to mono for the single subwoofer.



http://www.amazon.com/Rockford-Fosgate- ... 62&sr=1-31

I use a Monster Cable similar to this to connect my MP3 player.



http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-Audio-Cabl ... 807&sr=8-1

The MP3 player I use has an FM reciever in it.



http://www.amazon.com/Creative-MicroPho ... 32&sr=1-24

And that's all there is to it.

beautiful work El, I'm impressed.

I do quite a lot of sheet metal fab work, but no complicated curves like that. what do you use? english wheel? cutting and shaping small parts and welding together the finished piece?

I think I'd have to have it in about 20 pieces for my first try if I tried that heh.

The kick panels were made from four pieces.

I annealed and hammer formed the bulges on a sand bag with urethane hammers and not much else. The rest of the shapes were trimmed out by hand on a band saw and TIG welded together. I should have taken a picture of them before covering them with upholstry. I could have polished them out , they are that nice.

The armrest is the same thing, instead of pounding it out on a sand bag I used a bead roller with half tanking dies and a finger break. If I wasn't in such a mad rush to finish the job before I left on a road trip I would have taken pictures. I think I built the kick panels and console/arm rest in under 40 hours.

Since the previous owners cut up the dash anyway, I got one of the new radio's with the I-pod and USB connectors. I'm downloading my music on a 1 gig thumb drive (about 250 songs) and plug it in the USB port. I can take it out and never lose it, besides, what punk would think to look for a thumb drive. Not stock but not bad.
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The speakers are in the door like everybody else's.
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Works out pretty well with the windows up, but the Flowmasters make any sound pretty dim after about 70 mph.
U@ss

most all of my metal fab work has always been the same type of production work over and over again, I've never done any sand bag work, and not much hand forming. Almost all of the stuff I do is with a set of rolls, stomp sheer and hand sheers.

It'd be a lot of fun to play around with something like that. You've given me ideas

Sorry to hijack the thread though.

I'm a closet audiophile so sound staging and quality are a bit of an issue. Mounting the speakers in the door panels like you show Skip doesn't give a "line of sight" position for the higher frequency. Those high frequencys are very directional and picky to your ears. Not suprising to hear your sound gets muddy as the noise level increases.

Where I have the speakers mounted in my truck, it takes less volume to be heard clearly even with the windows open and the high performance big block bellowing it's tune at 80+.