C3 Radio Repair

[MaineVette]

Hey Guys,

My stock radio appears to be dead, it won't turn on. Is anyone aware of any quick things that should be checked before I make the decision to pay to have it repaired or sell it as-is? Are there any internal fuses or problems that currently occur?

[vito]

Here ya go Tim on a repair shop

http://www.mikehaganantiqueautoradio.co ... rvice.html

I was going to give them a call to see if they can upgrade the internals so I can attach my I-pod.

[nwav8tor]

Do you get any indication of power getting to the unit like a dial light or is there just no audio output? Perhaps the power wire or ground wire is broken...

[MaineVette]

I gave up on trying to fix the radio. I could get the illumination light to come on, but I couldn't get any sound to come out of the speakers I hooked up to it. This was connecting power directly to the radio on my workbench so the wiring harness was removed from the equation.

I opened it up to see if there was anything obviously wrong inside like a burnt out resistor, broken wire, etc. but I couldn't see anything. I concluded that trying to fix it would be way beyond my ability. I'm just going to replace it with a new one I think, less headache and way better sound quality in the end.

[MaineVette]

Hey guys, I had a bit of time to take a few photos. Here's what I'm dealing with. Maybe one of you can figure out what I'm doing wrong. I'm sure it's something obviously simple.

Here's a shot of the radio installed in the center console. Note that the recesses and knob details are the same on both sides.



Here are the knobs and bezels. Both knobs are the same but the bezels are different. I'm not sure which bezel goes on which side.



When I install the deeper bezel all is good



But, when I install the more shallow bezel the little lever bottoms out against the console. It's not even close to fitting right. In addition, because I can't set the bezel down into the console, the knob doesn't engage securely with the shaft. This is true whether I install the bezel on the right or left side of the radio.



Ideas are welcome, I've tried a few times with no luck. I'm stumped so I've just set it aside for now.

[ktruff46]

Tim,
It actually looks like the shafts on the radio aren't protruding out far enough. Back in a different life I had a '61 Catalina and I remember correctly, there were jam nuts on the back side of the radio shafts that could be adjusted so the radio came out further through the housing if needed. This was like 40 years ago so don't quote me on this, but that may be what you need to do.
Ken

[vito]

Tim,

If I didn't know better, I would say that you have a mixture of radio knobs/bezels. It looks like Pauls and my pairs (volumn and station) are physically the same size. It looks like the radio is installed correct tho.

Cheers

Vito

[a66toy]

Do you have the correct knobs and spacers? Looking at the Zip site they are showing different knobs. Also they list different sets for stereo and mono.

Now if this will be helpful, uncap the headers and then who needs a radio.

[MaineVette]

Tim,
It actually looks like the shafts on the radio aren't protruding out far enough. Back in a different life I had a '61 Catalina and I remember correctly, there were jam nuts on the back side of the radio shafts that could be adjusted so the radio came out further through the housing if needed. This was like 40 years ago so don't quote me on this, but that may be what you need to do.
Ken

The jamb nuts are all the way tight to the radio housing. The only way I could get it to sit tighter would be to put both jamb nuts on the console side. Seems like that would be an odd setup to me, but maybe it's right. I can give that a try this weekend.

[MaineVette]

Tim,

If I didn't know better, I would say that you have a mixture of radio knobs/bezels. It looks like Pauls and my pairs (volumn and station) are physically the same size. It looks like the radio is installed correct tho.

Cheers

Vito

All I know is that it fit together perfectly before I took it apart.

I'm going to try putting both jamb nuts on the outside of the console next. Maybe that'll do the trick.

As is typically the cast it's the little things that drive me nuts the most on this project.