Roostre's 1967 C20

[Roostre]

It's unseasonably beautiful today, so I decided to install my radio over lunch. As I said in an earlier post, my truck had an aftermarket radio in it, but whoever installed it did not completely destroy the dash. They just ground on the knob holes a little bit. The radio that was in it was from the 90's, and looked terrible. I had an aftermarket Panasonic from the early 80's with an 8 track player. So, I drew up an adapter plate that would nicely cover the stock holes in my dash and mount the 80's radio. I had it cut out of 1/8" aluminum plate. I installed the radio, and wired it up to the single dash speaker that my truck had in it, and the radio fired right up!

When I first tore this truck apart to do the body work, I filled and smoothed the antenna hole in the cowl. I had an unknown hidden antenna for many years, so I figured I would try that. While it is a nice day, it is not warm enough for double sided tape to stick to steel, so I ended up wedging the antenna between the gas tank and fuel line, and ran the antenna cord to the radio. Imagine my shock then the radio picked up several stations inside my block with steel roof shop. This antenna is working better than I could hope.

Finally, since I figured I would not have a reliable antenna, I decided I wanted Bluetooth. As I said before, my radio is equipped with 8 track. I decided to see if there was an 8 track Bluetooth adapter. I couldn't find one for a reasonable price, so I grabbed a Charlie Rich Greatest Hits 8 track and made my own by gutting a cassette to Bluetooth adapter. For the Charlie Rich fans out there, don't worry, it didn't have The Most Beautiful Girl on it, so how comprehensive was it, really? My homemade adapter works pretty well, but I think my 8 track head unit needs some adjustment and or a good cleaning because I need to move the 8 track around in the stereo a little bit to get full volume out of it. But, it was a really cool project and I'm happy with it.

So the pictures. First is the installed radio, next the antenna behind the seat, and finally the radio with the 8 track to Bluetooth adapter in it.