Factory Gentleman Jim Speakers

[ElGracho]

I took these pictures for Jeff for a thread on the 1980 factory speakers. I mentioned they had factory kickpanel speakers in Gentleman Jim's and Jeff wanted to see some pics. I took these early in April and forgot I had them until today.

This truck has an interesting (maybe just to me) story. I bought my Gentleman Jim in August of 2002. Thinking we'd never see another one, about 6 months later, my uncle found one for about 1/4 the price. He called me up and made me guess what he had found. About 6 months after that, he saw this truck poking out of an alley. All he could see is the right front fender. He noticed the gold paint under the missing trim (from across a 45 mph 4 lane road) and had to turn around. He talked the owner out of this neglected Gentleman Jim for $500.

You can see that the speakers must not be that great since they went ahead and ruined the doors for others anyhow... My Gentleman Jim, both of my uncle's, and the 4 or so I have seen in Junkyards all had these speakers in exactly the same place. They are factory and I've only seen them on the Gentleman Jim's in this spot. That wire you see in the picture is where they tapped in for the door speakers. That part is most definitely not factory. Also note the ugly ass velour seat cover on the factory bucket seat.

[heavychevy79]

The 78 Silverado Big Ten I just sold had speakers just like those with a very nice factory GM Stereo with EQ too!
That truck is white with red interior, regular wiper switch, manual windows, cargo light and tilt steering. I don't think it had a hood ornament.

Keep us posted on your progress with that truck, I'm very interested.

[Jonboy]

Is the 57 Caddy his too?

[ElGracho]

Yeah. He's got about 30 cars. That's a parts car for one he has mostly restored. You also see the back of a ratty Beau James.

[heavychevy79]

More pictures!!!!!

[bigblock73]

That is pretty cool Joe! Thanks for the pics.

Question, I thought the GJ was a 75 model...it appears this truck has an older grill. Is it really a GJ, or were GJ parts used on the truck? Did you check the VIN? Obviously it has been fixed up at some point, so I am just curious as to if you know.

[ElGracho]

It's a Gentleman Jim. I can only assume the grille was replaced at some point with the 73-74 Grille. The RPO code 9A5 "GMC Promotional Pac" is present on the sticker in the glove box (along with a 75 GMC vin and all of the Gentleman Jim options). It also has most of it's original gold trim.

I would have used my truck for the pictures, but my original speakers are gone. The previous owner hacked in some other 6" speakers in the original holes. Luckily I got a set of the speaker covers from another Gentleman Jim I found in a wrecking yard before I even had my truck.

[cherokeelighthorse]

is there a hole behind the Gentleman Jim Speakers in to the metal where the kick panel gos for the Gentleman Jim Speakers

[ElGracho]

Yes, there is a hole in the metal kick panel and a red plastic plug they made to fit in there to keep water out of the cab and off the back of the speaker.
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[v30crewcab]

got any pics of the red plug? just curious if its totally sealed, or open at the bottom?

[cherokeelighthorse]

thinks ElGracho i wold like to have a pic of the red plastic plug if you got one ty

[ElGracho]

I'll see what I can do. Give me a few days.

[cherokeelighthorse]

thinks

[ray_mcavoy]

I belive the kick panel speakers were also available as a dealer installed option as well (included in a kit with the stereo radio receiver).

Dad put one of those factory stereo & kick panel speaker kits in one of his trucks years ago and the original instruction sheet somehow managed to survive in a pile of paperwork all these years. Here are a few scans from that sheet:


This shows the installation of the kick panel speakers on trucks with the large trim panels that cover the entire kick panels:



This shows the installation of the kick panel speakers on trucks with the small trim panels that only cover the upper part of the kick panels:



And this shows the wiring and crossover assembly that was used to connect the kick panel speakers along with the existing center dash speaker:



There are additional pages showing the installation of the stereo itself, more details on the crossover mounting, and the ground straps and capacitor used for radio noise suppression. I can scan those too if anyone is interested.

[bigblock73]

I am lucky, I have a complete NOS kit of this. I will try and photograph it over the weekend.

[ElGracho]

Those instructions are exactly what is in my Gentleman Jim. Radio with the crossover, speakers, everything.

[ElGracho]

I just went out and pulled one of the aftermarket 5 1/4" speakers from my Gentleman Jim. The holes have been hogged out and the plastic cups are gone. I will be down in Oregon and can get some pics of the truck shown at the top of this thread at the beginning of April.

I offer instead pictures of an original Gentleman Jim radio. I have a couple of these plus the original is still in my truck. Notice the wiring and the support bracket is different from any other radio that came in these trucks. I could be wrong on this because I haven't dealt with the 75 and earlier trucks much except for Gentleman Jim and Beau James trucks.

[ElGracho]

Here's a pic tossed in of a few other radios I've collected (hoarded?) over the years...

[72malibu]

Does anybody have photos of the wiring harness or instructions discussed earlier in this thread? All the Photobucket photos are gone, of course.

I've got most of the 8-track radio harness (and the radio and crossover) for my dad's Gentleman Jim but I'm missing part of the harness and trying to sort out what I need to complete it.

[ray_mcavoy]

Originally Posted by 72malibu

Does anybody have photos of the wiring harness or instructions discussed earlier in this thread? All the Photobucket photos are gone, of course.

I've got most of the 8-track radio harness (and the radio and crossover) for my dad's Gentleman Jim but I'm missing part of the harness and trying to sort out what I need to complete it.

I thought I still had copies of those on my PC but couldn't find them to repost. Luckily, I still have the paper copy so I re-scanned it (scanned the entire thing this time).

[ray_mcavoy]

And the rest of the pages:

[ElGracho]

Thanks for posting those again! Those are great. Amazing your Dad kept them.

[72malibu]

Thanks! This is very helpful.

[72malibu]

So, looking all this over, the factory Gentleman Jim setup is a little different than the instructions for the "kit." The radio and wiring are slightly different, but the speakers are the same.

I wanted to convert the 3-speaker (center dash and 2 kick panel) setup to 4 speakers (2 kick panel, 2 rear corner) and talked it over with the person who restored the AM/FM 8-track for me. He noted that the factory harness has some special "resistor wiring" in it, to trick the radio into thinking it has more than 3 speakers. These are brown/white striped wires that are bundled and wrapped in harness tape and are pinned into both of the speaker connectors that connect to the radio.

Basically, to run 4 speakers, you remove all that resistor wiring, add a second positive wire to each connector (the 3-pin connector for rear speakers and the 4-pin connector for front speakers), and either add appropriate ground wiring or just ground the speakers directly to the body. I added a second ground wire to the 4-pin and will use the existing ground wire in the 3-pin (after cutting off a resistor wire) and run a ground wire from one rear speaker to the other.

Hope this is helpful to somebody....