dados66

I would appreciate any recommendations for radio restoration. Before you recommend Jerry at Electrodesign, his web site says he is no longer accepting radios for restoration as of April 16.

Does anyone have experience with other restoration services?

I found Wonderbarman in the FAQ section who looks like he does very nice work.

I am also curious if anyone has used Eckler's upgrade service which upgrades it to modern circuitry.

My radio works but not well. It had a mediocre "restoration" done 15 years ago which didn't seem to improve it much. I would like to have an aux input fitted.

Thanks for your advice!

Frankie the Fink

If you want to gut and upgrade your original radio then you can seek out Gary Tayman here in Florida. Can't post his contact info by forum rules so search for "Gary Tayman radio". He put a modern Aurora circuit board in my original '63 radio; it pulls in weak signals like crazy with crisp, deep sound, everything appears/works as original but it still has bluetooth and voice commands, "Hey Siri.....find the nearest gas station"

Passed regional NCRS judging with no deducts. You can get an AUX input, but frankly with bluetooth that input method is nearly obsolete.

I'm sure Eckler's upgrade service just farms the work out to somebody like Gary or Wonderbarman, etc..

Revette

Now, that is a very cool upgrade for an old car.

Frankie the Fink

Just to be completely accurate - if you do a solid-state, stereo upgrade your original, transformer-impedance-matched, mono, radio speaker won't work anymore.

You can install one of the Eckler's 140W 6"x9" dual voice coil speakers for about $50 and they work superbly with the converted radio

dados66

Thanks! Nice upgrade. I called him this morning to discuss.

Does the bluetooth phone actually work with all the noise? Mine will also have sidepipes.

Gary mentioned that the speaker clearance with A/C cars (like mine) means some speakers don't work. Do you know anything about this issue?

Frankie the Fink

The midyear A/C original speakers aren't as deep as non-A/C cars (assuming factory A/C), because of the waterfall center A/C duct. Aftermarket A/C is no problem. That's what I have. Bluetooth will work fine in your car.

However, my voice activated conversion radio works but microphone placement is critical - sidepipes could definitely affect that though...