'36 Radio switch

Steve in Denver

Steve in Denver

Well-known member
I have a '36 that has been upgraded to a 12v negative ground by a previous owner, great.

I found an original 6 volt positive ground radio and dash dial. Not sure if the radio works, but I did some checking and if I put a 12v to 6v converter on it, I will still have problems because it is positive ground. There is way too much of it to look at isolating it from the rest of the car and trying to switch the grounding problem that way. I did talk with one of the advertisers, $700 to convert the existing box to am/fm. That will have to wait, I need brakes first. Oh, will do a separate posting on that question.

Any suggestions?

I would consider a later model am/fm radio that I could remove the knobs from and adapt the '36 cable connectors to. Has anyone done this, any suggestions?
 
Hi Steve
I did it this way in my 36.
I used a "Pyle" brand radio I found on ebay that still uses knobs for tuning and volume. It also has USB connection.
I made a small gear reduction so that the full sweep of the Ford dial would match the sweep of the new radios dial. You could do it without going to that trouble. Took a bit of head scratching but it works.
The radio fits behind the dash above the steering column (mine is RHD but should work either side)

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Get one of the small radios controlled by a remote and hide it in your 36 radio box. I had my 36 radio converted and it is awful. Tune in to a station, turn the radio off, and when you turn it back on it isn't on the station anymore. Miserable!
 
robert, thats a great idea! i looked at ebay and i see that pyle makes a lot of fancy stuff, like many pages of it, but i dont see the simple radio with knobs on it like yours. could you tell us the model number to aid in the search? thanks, skip
 
The gears are in the ratio of 3.4 : 1. so the big gear on the radio tuning shaft would be 34t and small gear on cable would be 10 or close to that.
From memory the radio only cost about 60 or 70 dollars.


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About the only thing in a stock '36 radio that has to be converted to use 12v negative ground is the ********, going to a solid state ******** and a very good voltage reducer.
My radio man converted a 9 tube Philco 6v for me.. He had the speaker re-coned while he was at it.
 
blucar said:
About the only thing in a stock '36 radio that has to be converted to use 12v negative ground is the ********, going to a solid state ******** and a very good voltage reducer.
My radio man converted a 9 tube Philco 6v for me.. He had the speaker re-coned while he was at it.
Click to expand...

Agree, but know that solid state vibrators (I have one in my '50) are available as 'positive ground' or 'negative ground'. Polarity IS important. Tube filaments don't care about polarity, only voltage. Each tube can be replaced with a 12v tube of it's kind, i.e 12V6 for 6V6, 12SN7 for 6SN7 etc.
 
It looks like the existing ********. One gets it by googling "12v negative ground ********" and ignoring ads fir the women's versions.
 
Thanks, I did find one. Now I just need to pull the radio and see if I think I am smart enough to replace it with out screwing everything else up. I do have a 6 v battery and will test the radio isolated from the car, before I do all this to make sure the radio even works.
 
Paul Bennett said:
Agree, but know that solid state vibrators (I have one in my '50) are available as 'positive ground' or 'negative ground'. Polarity IS important. Tube filaments don't care about polarity, only voltage. Each tube can be replaced with a 12v tube of it's kind, i.e 12V6 for 6V6, 12SN7 for 6SN7 etc.
Click to expand...

You can´t just replace the tubes for it´s 12 equivalent for converting.
The transformer for the highvoltage is wound for 6v and running the radio on 12v would double the HT to the tubes.
A transformer from a later 12v unit or rewinding it would solve that issue...probably easier to use a voltage reducer though.
 
Here´s a video where you can see how the ******** works...this is a mechanical unit.
The old mechanical units doesn´t care about polarity and if the radio doesn´t have electrolytic capacitor in the power feed before the ******** the radio can be run on negative or positive ground in theory atleast.
https://youtu.be/RnwjhT5coJs
 
Robert 1936...nice work! Did you still have to use noise suppressors? How is your reception? Terry
 
Very nice video on how the radio ******** works. Just curious, what software did you use to create the drawing and make the two lines go back and forth so fast?
Steve
 
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