Car Radio Solution

A friend [1] has an excellent Super Minx but it doesn't have a modern
stereo. It does have a nice old 60s radio (LW and MW, no FM), it's also
still positive earth and will be staying that way.

What I've been asked to do is find some way of getting music in the car.
Without hacking away at the original dashboard:
http://www.sweller.dynalias.org/images/Minx 004.jpg

Is there a such a thing as an amplifier/iPod arrangement (hidden on the
parcel shelf) that can be made to drive the rather pleasant sounding
original speakers in the car.

I can fit a cigarette socket without drilling so power isn't a problem.

Would this sort of thing be loud enough?
http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=IXOS-XMI20
8


[1] Female, Dutch and a bit drippy.

 

No.

Not sure how you'd get around the +ve earth, but you can get cradles for
modern head units which will suspend it under the shelf. You'd have to
drill a few holes in an unseen place to attach one, though.

You can get much more powerful iPod speaker systems that would possibly
be up to the job - but I'd not want any less than 20W RMS in a car -
especially a noisy old one.

 

Sheer pointlessness.
--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

Teach a man to fish and he and his pikey mates will have the
river cleaned out in a day.

 

I know that but I cannot be arsed to **** about with the battery leads as
they are stupidly long and original.

And the radio isn't the type you can change between polarities.

 

....and it would look shit in a forty-five year old car.

Looking more for a portable solution. Can you get CD/radio beat boxes
that play MP3s?

 

Lots of people do it, though - it's the only economical solution to
getting music in older cars. You can get the original head unit re-built
with new, modern, internals, complete with an aux. input, but that's not
cheap.

Yes.

This may just about be OK, actually:

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5345870/Trail/searchtex
t%3EIPOD.htm

There aren't many speaker systems or boom boxes which have a decent
power output these days.

 

What do you call not cheap?

 

Depends on how much money she's willing to throw at the problem.
There are companies about who can fit modern(ish) internals to those
old radios. A quick skim of the back section of Practical Classics may
led you astray^Win the right direction.

The easiest way would probably be to fit a radio that's been converted
to FM and use an iPod FM transmitter.

http://www.richersounds.com/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=IXOS-XMI
208

That may do the job. Probably battery powered, too.

 

Is that a portable beat box type thing or a standard DIN car unit? The
standard modern type that will look shit in a sixties car.

 

ISTR a couple of hundred quid, but I can't find the website at the
moment.

 

AFAIK there aren't.

That said, it may simply be possible for those companies that can
rebuild old radios to add an 'aux' input and hook it up to the LW
button on the radio.

 

Ahh, his site is down:

www.vintagewireless.co.uk

They do FM conversions and fit line-in sockets to old car radios.

A quick google suggests 60 quid for a 'service / overhaul' and another
£120 for FM / line-in conversion.

 

What I could do with is a simple amplifier with a 3.5 jack in and stereo
speaker outputs running off 12v in a plain box. Volume could be
controlled by the iPod.

Can any electronics wizards knock something together? With a standard
USB port to charge the iPod?

How much do you think it'd cost?

 

And what would you do for speakers? Trying to hook them up to the same
speakers may cause a lot of problems....

I'd go get a cheapish car audio amp and hook up an 3.5mm -> RCA cable.

More trouble than is worth, IMHO.

 

It has two 6" elipitical speakers, front and back. Failing that I also
have a pair of good parcel shelf speakers which I had in a Morris 1000.

D'oh - hadn't thought of that. What's RCA cable?

 

OK, you'll have a bit of a problem if you want to hook up two amps to
the same speakers so you probably should be using the parcel shelf
speakers.

One of those:

http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/value-35mm-auxin-link-p-3694.html?cadid=
f00594a72e00d3c35e1369526f63c424

Don't think I've got a spare one, otherwise you could have it.

 

Will that work with Sir's non FM radio.

 

When I had my Mk3 Zephyr, I had a modern unit inside the glove box doing
the sound and the old one there just for 'show'. You could setup a split
relay type arrangement charging a battery in the boot and then run a 'non
earthed' solution from it for the modern kit(Be careful re aerials though!).

 

There's something in today's Sunday Times about just this. I'll look
it out of the bin...

 

.... and double the value of the car in the process.