AM radio question for you old school guys

[asolde]

I have herd or was told that sometimes when our truck were purchased from the dealer new. If the new owner did not want the radio he had the option to have the dealer remove it and put in a blanking plate. The dealer would then take the radio and turn it back into GM for a credit. Has any one ever herd this and is it a fact?

[bobs409]

I never heard of that before.

One thing that comes to mind is what did they do about the hole in cowl panel from the antenna?

[SS Tim]

Pretty unlikely. Most of the time radios were dealer added on low content vehicles. The trucks came without a radio as standard (on all trim levels) so someone ordered the radio. If a dealer were to pull a radio & speaker it still leaves behind a number of radio option specific parts like the antenna, and added grounds/capacitors. So maybe a customer or two had a radio removed but they probably went into another lot truck. But the radio would not have been returned to GM.
Sounds like a story down the road to enhance the deal on a truck missing the stock radio.

[asolde]

So then if it is listed on my SPID on my 69 Blazer then it had a radio? If a truck was delivered without a radio then it would not be listed on the SPID correct? Would the cowl have a hole for the antena with no radio? I havent seen this information in ym assembly manual yet. How did the blanking plates come about?

[463]

blanking plates ( "Radio deleat plate") are placed in the dash at the factory to fill the radio hole in the dash. The cowl will not have a hole for the antena.
Now the dealer could install the radio and antena. For the hole in the cowl a templet was used to get the antena hole in the correct spot.
If the SPID is the original and not a reproduction SPID and it states a radio the it came from the factory that way, now over time it may have been altered added or deleated.
Hope i was able to put some light on your questions.