My '69 roadster has been an amazing car to drive since it was restored. Its biggest weakness has always been the stereo. Car has stock sidepipes. The stereo was junk when I bought it. I eventually bought a stock '69 stereo unit and it always sounded horrible.

At one point, I had the stock radio converted to modern insides with a lead for iPod. Added slim 4x? Polk speakers inside the stock kick panels, and it was installed with ugly box rear speakers just to make it work. It was horrible.

Here I need to make something clear... I probably have the lowest expectation for stereo performance in North America. I don't want a pricey super booming system, I just want the radio to function properly so I can sorta hear it.

So, seeing what so many people have done in the C3 section, I bought the bigger Polk speakers that mounted cut into the kick panels, and had a Kenwood powered amp installed. It wasn't perfect, but it was 100% better.
Sounded decent.

Today (day 2) I was driving and I was at a light thinking how good it sounded, playing Enter Sandman. I turned it up a bit, not a lot. The radio just stopped, clunk.

Went home, assuming I blew a fuse. What I could see, fuse was OK. My buddy who installed said the radio had a thermal system that would shut off when too hot and would reset when cooled. PS, the amp remote light stayed on, indicating it was still on. Also, it was 90 degrees, felt much hotter. Heat advisory...it was hot so a heat explanation sounded right.

Later this evening I checked it. When I turned the radio on, the stereo light came on, something it did not do before, leading me to rule out a fuse. But, there's still no music. And, the stereo light goes off almost right away. No music plays through the iPod, either.

Does it need longer to cool? Is this system doing what it should? Is there a "reset" that needs to be done manually? Another repair? Is the radio a paperweight? Does this story make any sense at all?

 

If you have an external amp driving the speakers then there is no reason your head unit will over heat!

Modern built-in over temp protection circuits usually will reset itself as soon as the unit cools down.

How do you know it's the head unit and not the amp that stopped working?

 

I don't know anything. All I know is I turn on the radio, the stereo light flashes on and then off, and I get silence.

 

The problem could be anything and needs hands-on troubleshooting. You could eliminate one thing without paying someone. Did you play music from a different source like the FM radio?

 

How did your buddy hook up the units? Via speaker level output to the amplifier or line level low voltage RCA plugs?

Sounds a bit like an impedance mismatch and you blew the head unit's output section.