46 radio

[HELENT]

good morning have not been on barn lately just enjoying my 46 what i would like to do is put small radio in my car all i have is a delete plate and speaker in dash new type speaker who would make a plate to mount radio if anyone has pic i like to see them like to keep stock if i can no cutting dash just a plain am/fm radio with cd its already wired for a radio all i need is a nice mounting plate thanks a lot for help

 

[waterboychuck]

You could just put a modern radio in the glove box and everything will look original, or you could buy an original radio and have it converted to a am/fm bluetooth. your choice.

 

[Kurt in NJ]

When I got my 46 it had the blankoff plate drilledand cut for what was a"modern radio", 2 holes and the rectangle, and a strap up the back to support it

 

[HELENT]

boys i need help

 

[JSeery]

There are companies that make period style radios with modern guts. I can think of three options:
1. Original style radio converted to modern electronics.
2. Hidden remote control radio
3. Modern radio that will fit the original space.

I would go with the hidden remote-control style. Mount it in the trunk, they have multiple CD capability or use the more current mp3/USB Stick style.

 

[Old Henry]

One idea is to get a refurbished original AM radio such as this one on eBay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1946-1947-1...Parts_Accessories&hash=item1c4d5c0f08&vxp=mtr

That will get you the AM radio. Then you can hook up a portable CD player or MP3 player that has an FM radio in it like I have and play it through a headphone amp to the speaker such as this setup I've done.

The earphone signal from the phone doesn't really put out enough to play the speaker at desired volumes so I introduced the most powerful headphone amp I could find.

It is very small but boosts the signal to the speaker to normal listening levels. It runs on a 9 volt battery but that battery doesn't last long running the speaker so I made an external 9 volt battery pack with 6 D cell batteries that lasts a year or more.

This is a picture of my original setup using a CD player playing only one side of the stereo signal through the mono speaker. The mp3 player or iPhone are now in the place of the CD player and the output from the amp goes to the speaker switch as explained below.

Then, the other problem is combining stereo outputs into the mono speaker. For most output, particularly the radio shows that were only mono, playing just one side of the stereo output through the speaker was satisfactory. But some more modern music, particularly the Beatles, had strongly separated stereo tracks so that it sounded weird to just listen to one. Every method I tried to combine the stereo tracks caused distortion. So, I installed a stereo speaker in the dash so that I could hear both tracks together.

Now that I had stereo speakers in the dash, I had to figure out how to switch it between the stereo amp where the mp3 player and iPhone played through and the mono stock AM radio in the dash. If I could have found a quad post double throw switch I could have done it with one switch but I couldn't. So, I used two double post double throw Radio Shack switches to do the job. The two leads from each speaker are connected to the center common terminals on the switch. Each pair of wires from the amp are connected to the terminals on one side of each switch. On the other side of the switch the mono signal from the radio is connected with one wire going to one terminal of each switch and a jumper wire connecting the other two terminals so that when the speakers are played from the radio mono signal they play in series rather than parallel to keep the ohms at the higher rate that the radio needs. The switches are mounted side by side in the top of the glove box and are both switched together to either side for the desired effect.

The lead from the amp to plug into the mp3 player or iPhone is kept in the glove box and just brought out when needed to be plugged in.

You can see the two switches on the left of the top of the glove box for switching the speakers between the radio and the stereo. The right switch is for the glove box light. The blue in the back is the 9 volt power pack.

 

[TJ]

I mount all my radios in the glove box. I mount them to the top of the box which leaves room in the bottom for glove box items such as registration, etc. Two small L brackets and a strap at the back will suspend it from the top. I use a hole punch in the back panel to access the power wires, speaker wires, and antenna wire. Years a go there was a company that made an adapter that took the place of the stock block off plate that would mount a modern radio. I can't recall their name , but they made various items for dash boards.
You night consider modifying a radio delete plate to mount the radio. Most modern radios have a smaller face than the stock radio and modifying a radio delete plate to fit the face may be the answer.