1973 Dodge AM/FM Stereo Components ?

[1970FuryConv]

· I believe my car came with the stereo tape with rear speaker. (Do not have tape deck)

· Questions

· Stereo control switch: what does it do and how does it operate? Is it really a thumb wheel fader?

· Crossover (above glove compartment): what does it do and how does it operate?

Thanks for all members input!
@Zymurgy if you're out there, please chime in.

 

[marko]

yes thats a front rear fader thumbwheel.

 

[Zymurgy]

I'll be honest I've not familiar with your set up. Everything I put black into my 66 is aftermarket but hidden. Your crossover is just simply restricting the frequencies that go to the speakers, such as cutting out the highs or lows in the music. It is designed for the factory speakers. I would hook everything up and see how it sounds.

Hopefully wires weren't cut and you can simply plug everything back together. It will work fine without the cassette player, but a cool addition if you could find one.

If you would replace your speakers in the future with an aftermarket set most likely you would put in a full range speakers, therefore you would just bypass the crossover.

 

[CBODY67]

Your pictured components are consistent with a factory installation AM/FM Stereo, with the full five speakers on sedans/hardtops/wagons. The Clectron item is the "divider box" that makes things happen. The front/rear fader is a "stereo-specific" item, too, although it might look similar to the non-stereo unit.

Reason I know this is that I added the OEM-specific AM/FM Multiplex/Stereo radio unit to my '70 Monaco Brougham DH43N to replace the existing AM w/rear speaker radio (considering the car was sold by a dealer where few FM stations existed in far southwestern TX.

The three front speakers give the front seat experience of being on a front-center concert seat which no normal 2-speaker front stereo system can provide, by observation. Not unlike the "Spatial Imaging" of the later LH cars. FWIW, Chrysler radios had better frequency response than GM radios had back then. Especially better than Ford, too.

By nature, some might consider the smaller side front speakers as "mid-range" or "tweeter" speakers, but from my testing, they had response down to about 100hz. Or course, the larger speaker in the middle was a more full-range speaker, just because it was larger. Which might lead to the orientation of the Clectron being a "cross-over" to send higher frequency material to the smaller speakers and the lower frequency material to the larger speaker? BTAIM

Hook that radio up as the FSM schematic indicates and enjoy,

Just some thoughts,
CBODY67

 

[bigmoparjeff]

I don't know if you'll find anyone who knows exactly what the Cletron box does, but I think CBODY67 is pretty close. With three speakers in the dash, I'll have to assume you have a right channel, a left channel, and the center speaker is mixed mono. The Cletron may be responsible for pulling out a mono combination of both channels, along with a crossover to split the highs and lows between the small outer speakers and larger center speaker. I've never popped one open, but I doubt that there's a whole lot of parts in that crossover box. The big issue these days is getting the radio itself to work. They are way past their design lifespan now and the components inside are failing at a pretty regular rate.

I remember that you were looking for a photo of the radio support bracket a while back. Here's a pic in case you never got one from someone else. The lower part of the bracket isn't super clear, so I highlighted it. The photo is a bit confusing because the dash is mounted in a rack of dashes, so you are seeing the top of the dash below it in the bottom of the picture.

Jeff

 

[1970FuryConv]

Thanks for all the answers.

I am a stereo neophyte so I essentially need all the help I can get.

· The factory shop manual does not have a single wiring diagram for the whole stereo multiplex system. I end up looking at a diagram for the front speakers, the diagram pictured above, and then a diagram in the body shop manual for the rear speakers. Further I can’t find any explanation of how the system works in the factory shop manual.

· To complicate matters, someone installed a pioneer stereo. They cut off the original connector and then spliced in wires for the pioneer connector. There is some wire sorting to be done.

· With the pioneer stereo, the front speakers, at least some of them were working. I don’t think the rear speakers were working.

· I bought the AM/FM radio pictured from Manuel. He said it was working when he sent it to me. If it doesn’t work with anything, I was going to send it off to Gary Tayman to be rebuilt.

· Question: all the speakers seem to have 2 wires, but they don’t seem to go to ground. Do speakers ground through their housing, such that the front speakers ground to the dash shell and the rear speakers ground to the body below the package tray?

 

[CBODY67]

Chrysler used "two-wire" speakers back then, which all ground back through the radio. The rear bracket also serves as the "case ground" for the radio in addition to being a support item to keep the radio stabil in its mounting location.

On my '80 Newport, the factory stereo uses two-wire front speakers but also use one-wire rear speakers. Which means "internal ground" rear spearkers. Instead, I got some aftermarket dual cones for back there and then ran a jumper wire from the negative terminal on the speaker to a speaker mounting bolt on each rear speaker. Completing the circuit for the rear speakers. Worked fine.

GM was famous for using internallyu-grounded speakers, especially for the rear speakers, in the 1970s and later.

Also note that there are "+" and "-" terminals on the speakers. On the factory speakers, you can determine which is which by the color codes of the wires. On the aftermarket speakers, one terminal is usually wider than the other terminal. You can also use a C-cell battery and two leads to do the same thing, making sure that the voice coils move in unison with each other. Most of the aftermarket wire bundles which can come with the speakers also have one lead which is golden and the other one is silver, which can be seen through the clear insulator material.

There is a definite part number on the connecting harness between the stereo f/r fader and the rear speakers. When I did my deal in 1976, I ordered everything from the local dealer (seems like it was about $300.00 USD at the time?). Everything came in from the Detroit Depot in about a week. Only the rear connector harness was not available! So I built one myself from heavier-gauge speaker wire and solderless terminals. Considering that this was when anything not mechanical was usually not avaialble past the current model year, from Chrysler, I was pleased and amazed that it all happened at all. Defied all odds, it seemed!

Somewhere, there is a schematie for the rear speaker wiring in the wiring schematics. Might download and look at several years of C-bodies. Mine was a '70 Monaco.

Enjoy!
CBODY67

 

[1970FuryConv]

Is the black wire at the rear of the radio the speaker ground?
Would the green and violet wires be sound output?

 

[1970FuryConv]

I remember that you were looking for a photo of the radio support bracket a while back. Here's a pic in case you never got one from someone else. The lower part of the bracket isn't super clear, so I highlighted it. The photo is a bit confusing because the dash is mounted in a rack of dashes, so you are seeing the top of the dash below it in the bottom of the picture. Jeff

2 great finds today
Original bracket still attached at dash shell

Parts Stash, matching Stereo connector

 

[bigmoparjeff]

Is the black wire at the rear of the radio the speaker ground?
Would the green and violet wires be sound output?

The black wires to the front speakers are ground. The speakers ground through the radio. Green and violet are positive.

I'd have to see the rest of the diagram to figure out what's going on with the wiring to the rear speakers. Seems odd that there are 4 colors going to the rear and none of them black.

The radio itself doesn't have a ground wire and is grounded through the case to the dash.

Jeff

 

[1970FuryConv]

I'd have to see the rest of the diagram to figure out what's going on with the wiring to the rear speakers. Seems odd that there are 4 colors going to the rear and none of them black. Jeff

Diagram is below, Factory Body Manual
Assume dark green is right channel and violet is left channel?

 

[bigmoparjeff]

Yes.

Looks pretty standard. They just decided to use red and dark blue for the grounds for some odd reason.

I did find it a bit surprising that they used separate ground wires up to 1973. I believe they started grounding the speakers to the body in 1974. I know that our '78 NYB with the fancy electronic radio only had one wire to each speaker. I updated it to a late eighties vintage Chrysler radio and had to run new wires to the speakers, as the newer radio had two wires going to each speaker.

Jeff

 

[ceebuddy]

The Cletron unit is a crossover. It divides higher frequencies from lower frequencies. I never studied the cable connectors but I assume the higher frequencies are the ones fed to the round side speakers in the dash.

 

[1970FuryConv]

Some progress
Factory radio installed

Speaker wires, butt connects are not easy from under a dash

Rear bracket

Rear wiring

Ran out of time tonight. Maybe power up and test tomorrow

 

[1970FuryConv]

Progress & Question
Antenna wire

Instrument panel clean up

? this wire comes out from under carpet near left side kick panel. Is it left over from something aftermarket?

Thanks

 

[1970cat]

cb antenna maybe ?

 

[1970FuryConv]

cb antenna maybe ?

Since the wire runs like it's going toward the trunk and since I don't see any mounting holes, could it have had a magnetic base with a wire that came out of the trunk? Or wifi that went to a receiving unit in the trunk?
Sorry, I don't know anything about CB.

 

[1970cat]

yes. the cable was probably pinched in the trunk lid opening. many of the antennas were magnetic. this was long before wifi.

 

[1970FuryConv]

Thanks. I've been painting my porch with my wife, last 3 days. Ugh, but gotta be done every 10 years. Haven't gotten a chance to look for the other end of the cable. At least I can cut it off where the carpet ends