I just picked up a 78 Pace car, with very little miles The radio makes noise when you turn it on, but hear no stations. The little slide you move to go between AM and FM does not move.at all. Anyone know what the fix is for that?I think the frequency shown in the display changes when you throw the switch, I bought a manual but it is about all the electrical, and not the Mechanical parts

 

Just sounds like a dead radio to me

 

I just got through today checking out a couple of 68's, 71 and 72 radio's and was surprised to discover they all worked and the separate transistor amps worked too. So, I think these radio's are pretty robust. Not sure if 78 is different so my experience is with 68/71/72. Suggest you take the RH dash panel out, center bezel and remove the radio. Clean all of the electrical connections with sand paper and reinstall with dielectric grease, check the speaker with ohm meter for 10 ohms (hope this is still 10ohm for 78, I think a modern 4ohm speaker will burn these radios up), make sure the transistor amp on the firewall behind the RH dash panel is grounded good with a clean support bracket. And pull the antennae wire out, clean it too. Finally check to see if you have ground continuity with the radio power plug for the black wire and 12v+ for the power wire (yellow to the radio power plug in my case) and last check your fuses in the fuse box for good fuses and clean contact.

Hope this might help.

 

hi I turn my 75 radio to full volume and I hear music but it is very weak any help would be appreciated. Thanks

 

no radio expert here, but...

I would check to see if antennae wire is complete (very low ohm check) from the plug in to the big metal radio box (tuner in center console) to the rear deck where the whip antennae plugs in and clean all the connections for corrosion. You can easily get to the radio antennae plug in by removing the small fill panel by passenger left foot.

If no change, I would remove the RH dash panel and clean the amp (big transistor mounted on aluminum finned mount) bracket ground to firewall.

If still no change, I would guess your amp (alum finned mount) is weak and I would say your tuner (radio box) is still good as you are getting a signal, just not amplified like it is supposed to be.

Also, these radio sound quality was not the best compared to today so that is why everybody used to sing along with the radio, LOL's!

You can find one of these amp's on ebay. Above assumes you have a basic radio system, the super stereo option had a couple of amp boxes, but I would still trouble shoot the same way.

Hope this might help.

(one more thought, I suppose your speakers could be shot, yours are in the dash pad, LH hard to access, but the RH easy with RH dash out. You could also remove that RH speaker and see if the cone looks good (no tears/trash) and unplug and check ohms, should be 10ohms, and not modern 4ohm. Good luck, hope it is just a bad connection that needs to be cleaned)

 

thank you for that great advice !! I’ll keep you updated