Just finished my second paid restoration. Actually a repair, it was a 1934 Philco model "C" out of a Nash. (AC-989). First time I'd ever worked on a car radio (not my first 6V vibrator set, so no surprises there)

I had this sense while working on it that I'd better be extra careful with it, because I suspect it's almost impossible to get spare parts for these things.

Any truth to that?

(Fortunately, it was straightforward to work on; other than letting the smoke out of the SS vibrator I bought from AAR and having to buy a new one at my expense - hooked the 6V wires up backward - I had no trouble beyond the usual. Lots of caps for a single-band 6-tube set......Very sensitive though. Would make a nice house radio if it were converted to AC and less fugly. Separate control head was a PITA to deal with too...)

Thanx

Paul

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I see a fair number of these things languishing at flea markets. They don't seem to be too popular, probably because most people who see them have no idea what they are. Most of what i see is missing the control head which makes it next to useless anyway.

John Bartley
43 Norway Spruce Street
Stittsville, Ontario
Canada, K2S1P5
-----
If you slow down it takes longer,
- does that apply to life also?
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They are fairly common but not as far as repo parts go (dials etc). Since I have a 49 and 63 Studebakers I have done some digging first hand for radios and heaters. Most people don't realize that mose 30's or 40's, early 50's didn't come with radio or even heaters. My 49 originally had an Allstate add on heater unit and no radio. Most brands made the car radios, Philco (I have a CR-2) Silvertone (forgot model number) and most people also forget that many Auto brands used the positive ground system, I don't know if that is what caused you to mix up the +/- leads but it does drive one crazy at times.

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The owner of an inexpensive main line car like a Ford, Chevrolet, or Studebaker would have been far less likely to spend considerable extra money to install a radio. The buyer of a Cadillac or Packard may have been more able to afford the optional radio at the time. Only after WW2 ended were car radios beginning to be the norm rather than the exception. Even in the 60's they were still optional but by then most buyers went for the radio because the cost of the radio had dropped way down in proportion to the price of the car. It's very unusual to find a car from the 70's or newer that does not have a radio.

Now, certain early car radios are in demand, because the few remaining vehicles are usually restored and the owners often try to load them up with as many factory accessories as they can find. But I suspect that far more car radios survive than the vehicles to put them into at this point. It was pretty common for owners to pull the radio when scrapping the car so a lot of them were saved.

D
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Yes there do seem to be plenty around. People ask me about the parts-the tubes, caps and resistors are the easy parts. The specialized mechanical stuff, dials, pushbuttons etc are the hard ones. I am developing a parts radio stash.

Heads separated from the radio boxes do make them useless (also GM and MoPar radios without the audio/power supply chassis). Often 30s radios don't sell as quiclky since there are less of the cars around, but if you match the right guy with a working radio I guess both parties are happy. One radio you can't miss with is the Ford glove box sets. I have seen them bring big bucks. I've seen a few with $2-300 asking prices, but they were dirt barn floor queens and were probably a mess inside.

I once had a '70 Chrysler from an aunt that ordered the car with no radio. Yes, a '70 Chrysler with no radio. It is the newest big MoPar I ever saw with the radio delete. Of course I cut the delete out to install a '70 Chrysler stereo I had. I was sorry I cut it as a year later I got a bunch of parts from a '70 including the dash. I could have saved that delete. Funny on Ebay I have seen delete panels go for more than the radios.

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I bought a 1934 Chevrolet radio and retro-fitted it into my 28 Chev Coupe. The restoration was very straight forward and the radio works well. The only problem I seem to have is with all the vibration. I have to drop the unit (no easy task) about once a year and re-solder a bunch of broken resistor/capacitor leads. On my last trip, it developed a loud hum so I know it's time for another fixin. I may just leave it out this time...

Ron

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I live in Warren, Ohio, the birthplace of the Packard brothers and the Packard car. The national Packard museum is located here and in 1999 on the hundredth anniversary of the first Packard car, over 500 Packards were displayed on the grounds of the museum and the WD Packard Music Hall. Most of these cars did not have radios. No more than half anyway. In the Packards from before WW II even fewer had radios. Apparently even Packard owners considered a radio in a car to be a luxury.

Steve Chambers

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I bought a radio for my 39 Buick ,not working and had to pay 100 dollars for it .Fortunatly I do have an extra for parts.Now to see if I can get my hydraulic floor jack in there to lift it up behind the dash, or pick a day when I really feel my oats.And yes that hot oatmeal is still my favorite breakfast.I bought a 63 chev 1/2 ton pickup new for 1508 dollars,no heater or radio,not to good without a defroster on rainy days.

A.K.
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There were many reasons why radios were not bought before WWII. The first, of course, was the depression. Secondly, the sets were all cable controlled from the control head amd were a bear to remove and service. The needs for service were a bit more frequent, but not too bad even then.

Until about 1934, the car companies didn't set up the dash and the firewall for radio installation and the radios that you bought were "universal" mounted designs. For example, the Model A Ford was almost impossible to install a radio in because the entire volume behind the dash was fuel tank. The magazines had scores or articles about Model A installations, and none of them were good. Before vibrator power supplies, battery boxes were installed in floor pans, hanging below the body. Rust consumed them quickly. For a short while, dynamotors supplied B+ for the radio. They had to be mounted in the engine compatment, to keep the screaming dynamotor out of the passenger compartment.

For those few owners who traded in their cars frequently, they felt that a radio was sort of a waste, as it was sold with the car, and he had to buy another radio for the next car. Companies like Motorola advertised taking the radio with you when the car was sold, and installing it in the next car. It worked for a few owners, but many considered it a pain in the you-know-where. Once the "factory" built-ins came along, there was no tendency to snatch the radio when the car was sold.

In 1937, the radio finally got small enough to be put completely behind the dash, speaker and all. It was on the '37 Buick. The 1939 model year found almost all cars with radios in one package behind the dash. Pontiac and the big custom Lincolns were two exceptions.

Many of the pre-1936 sets were actually not bad to work on. The early GM sets, as used on Chevrolet and Buick-Olds-Pontiac were excellent performers. They're sensitive, selective and sounded good. Many had synchronous vibrators, so battery polarity was important on them Philco's sets were among the best, in both quality and performance. Just now, I can't think of a Philco with a synchronous vibrator, but the dynamotor models care about battery polarity.

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Very interesting, thanks. I have no idea how this radio is going to be mounted in the owner's car but I'm sure it'll be interesting....I hope that all the other mounting requirements this set needs are already met.

This is a non-synchronous vibrator set that uses an 84 as a rectifier. With the mechanical vibrator installed it didn't matter which side was connected to + and which to -, but the SS vibrator is polarity sensitive. I knew it was a posi ground set and I had bought a posi vibrator, I was just careless one day. :/

Thanks all

Paul

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Paul what is worse, Studebaker used LH threads on the left side lug nuts and RH threads on the right side, so the addage righty tighty, lefty loosey doesnt work. I have seen a few people snap a lug stud going the wrong way because they are so used to normal modern threads.

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John,

Just an hour ago I removed a tire from my 47 Plymouth. You are correct. Right hand threads on the right and left handed on the left side of car. I too heard the analogy of the "tightening while you drive" story.

D

Polish proverb---From a distance things seem far away.
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Chrysler carried the LH/RH thread pattern all the way up into the late 60's early 70's I think. GM and Ford didn't stuck with one thread pattern on all four wheels.

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I have a brochure for a Kemper auto radio available for 1927. It shows the installation in a LaSalle coupe.
This goes to show we on the Left coast were ahead, as usual. Have fun. Howard

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So many good responses in this thread, I'm not even going to bother trying to quote.

In the early 80's I had a 1951 Chevrolet. It was the "Standard" model, as opposed to the "Deluxe", it had only what was needed to make it drivable, but it DID have a heater. It didn't even have turn signals - only two wires going to the trunk, one for brake lights, one for tail lights. Still have some 1154 bulbs laying around, anyone need them? Yours for postage.

Anyway, I knew someone that owned a junkyard, and they had a 1952 Ford radio laying around, they gave it to me free. The Chevy was negative ground, the Ford was positive ground - but with a non-synchronous vibrator, the radio didn't care.

I had a near-new 6E5 tube in my collection...you can probably guess the rest. I made a little box where the clock would have gone, and mounted the tube there (top center of the dash). Incredibly cool to drive a car with an eye tube in the dash.

The newest civilian car I've seen with a "radio delete" is a 1979 Dodge Aspen - actually I've seen police cars into the early 90's with a radio delete.

I own a 1972 Dodge Dart - according to the information I have, an AM radio and an AM/FM radio were both optional, and I believe it used a blank bezel if no radio was installed. On that car, a heater was optional as well, the service manual shows the installation of a right hand cowl vent only if no heater was installed (same as on the left side but the door swings the other way). I would imagine the right-hand cowl vent only to be a very low production item and probably big $$ for someone trying to find one. But that is the newest car I've seen with a heater as optional equipment.

On the other side of the coin, my daily driver is a 2002 Pontiac Aztek (which I love). Standard equipment includes heater and air conditioning - with outlets for the rear seat passengers, and the radio is AM/FM Stereo (no AM Stereo) with Compact Disk. I drive it with my Sirius reciever however, so it's kind of a moot point.

Just the difference in standard "creature comforts" between the Dart and the Aztek show that the "good old days" were vastly overrated.

Old cars - I rewired (actually installed a repro wiring harness) on a 1949 Cadillac for a guy once...the main thing I remember about it was that the battery was in one of the most difficult places I've ever seen - as I recall, right side firewall, just above the road.

As for split radios, it hasn't been restricted to old vacuum tube radios - many GM radios in the 70's had the radio in the dash - and several feet away, two large power transistors (DS-501 rings a bell) on a large heat sink. If someone would steal the radio - later, the junkyards - and not take the output transistors with it, the radio was useless.

Then...one I worked on once was a 1988 Buick Regal - the part you saw in the dash - with the push buttons and VFD (Vacuum Floroescent Display) was a control head only - the actual radio was mounted behind the glove compartment.

Then I also used to own a 1995 Cougar - that radio only had line level outputs, and had a separate power amplifier in the trunk.

It's not just a radio, it's history you can use!
---
Wenn Wellen schwingen, ferne Stimmen singen.
When airwaves swing, distant voices sing.
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I got a kick out of your putting the eye tube in the dash! When I was a kid, my dad replaced our Philco cathederal set with a battery operated Delco set that had a tuning eye and he told me that that eye would keep an eye on me while he wasn't home.

For years, I grew up thinking eye tubes were spying on me. Funny how simple things like that can affect a 3 or 4 year old child. So I can assume that under the same conditions, no hanky-panky went on in that car with the eye always watching over everybody! LOL!
(Connoisseur of the cold 807)
QCWA# 25085 AMI# 242
CW forever
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Indeed, in the sixties, there were once again multi-unit radios. Chrysler had a stereo radio with a cassette player and recorder. There's one of those laying around the house here somewhere. The Chrysler sets also had speakers all over the car, and the sound could knock you over. I have an '88 Mercury wagon and it has a stereo tape player radio with amplifier in the rear quarter of the body. The radio is built to drive speakers, but it couples to the booster amplifier, surely with loading resistors, and the system drives about 3 sets of speakers. It's the best performing car radio I've had in a modern car. The only Ford product I've ever owned.

NOW, for the off-topic. Lug nuts. Several years ago, I was restoring a '38 Cadillac coupe, while still in Detroit. Breaking down the front suspension, I was taking off the left front wheel. One lug nut wouldn't loosen. Cadillac didn't use LH threads on their cars, at least not that year. The damned thing wouldn't come loose. No choice left, I used the flame wrench (cutting torch) to get the nut off. Took it to the auto supply for a new stud. When I picked up the brake drum, the guy showed me the remains of the cut-off stud. It was a left hand thread! Some dipshytz had replaced one stud with a lH thread, some time in the past.

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Lol Doug what is a comment about lug nuts from probably a bunch of lug nuts!! I see most guys tend to be car nuts also. The eye tube in the dash is too funny I must admit, I am sure that hindered any hanky panky if the lady thought some tube was "eye-balling" what was going on.

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Interesting bunch of replies. I had a '59 Dodge and recall the different studs left and right. My memory is fuzzy as to whether my '72 Fury and '73 Monaco were like that. Doug your lug nut store reminds me of my going stupid one time and putting the wrong tie rod end on one of my cars (the '73 Dodge I think). Guy at the alignment shop kept turning the sleeve between the inner and outer rod ends and only the sleeve moved! I had to go buy the right one and take the car back for a second visit.

Buzz-was surprised to see a '72 car still had an optional heater. I once looked at a '57 Chevy that was out of McClenny Fla that was heater-less. Blank firewall! I have seen photos of a '59 Dodge with no heater. There is jsut a plenum vent for fresh air as I recall. I recall car ads when I was a kid that said "R&H"-radio and heater.

That '49 Caddy battery sounds like a PITA. Generally most '49 cars look easy to service compared to the new ones. Someday I want to see someobody lift one of those big long 6 volt batteries out of a car (like early 50s Buicks and Pontiacs). Is the Cadillac like that?

I once had a Buick Riviera as a rental with that TV screen in the dash. To me it was not easy to work anything without taking your eyes off the road. Give me an old mechaincal radio like I still have in my '85 Ford F-150. I understand the cost of that Buick system is heart-stopping if anything goes wrong with it.

I got a couple of 30s firewall mount radios in a stash I bought Monday but sadly the heads are not with them. One I recall is a Zenith 462 and the Philco a 811 or something similar. Looks like a '37 Packard radio I recently dumpster dived for! In time I will check them out and see if they'll play. I would expect as Doug says they'll work well. The schematics look like the better home radios with vibrator power.