Antenna Lead Help - Radio Install
06-11-2017, 12:00 PM
#1
Antenna Lead Help - Radio Install
Hello all,
Looking for some advice. I've attached a picture of my antenna lead, which has a 90 degree bend in it. My replacement radio is a USA 630 from Classic Car Stereos. The receptacle for the antenna lead is correct for the male plug, however, the 90 degree bend means I can't get it into the receptacle deep enough to make the connection. So the right thing (I think) is to redo the male end of my antenna lead.
However- I'm open to any and all suggestions. Thanks in advance!
Looking for some advice. I've attached a picture of my antenna lead, which has a 90 degree bend in it. My replacement radio is a USA 630 from Classic Car Stereos. The receptacle for the antenna lead is correct for the male plug, however, the 90 degree bend means I can't get it into the receptacle deep enough to make the connection. So the right thing (I think) is to redo the male end of my antenna lead.
However- I'm open to any and all suggestions. Thanks in advance!
06-11-2017, 07:54 PM
#3
UGH. Try before you post...lesson learned
Thanks for the suggestion, but I think I'll roll with "just try it" LOL.
06-13-2017, 12:11 PM
#4
Safety Car
You can pick up a cheap antenna booster and use that to adapt it to your stereo. Once you start bending and cutting on that 90 degree bend, there's no going back
03-19-2018, 12:29 PM
#5
I am getting ready to pull the trigger on this same radio. Did you get new speakers also? (I have some random aftermarket box speakers sitting in the back area of the car I may use for now.)
Anything you think I should know before I start to "take things apart"?
Anything you think I should know before I start to "take things apart"?
03-19-2018, 07:54 PM
#6
Radio Install
First- I really like the radio, and previous owner had a set of old school pioneers that sound pretty good, so I kept those. If you have the old stock speakers, pull them out, box them (I keep all original parts), and put in a newer set. The rears (if your C3 was so equipped) are easy to remove. The fronts are a bit tricky as the nuts nearest the windshield don't allow a lot of clearance for a tool.
Dissasembly.
Take the console side panels out first. There's three screws on each side- silver finish. I kept them in exactly the same location/position for reassembly. This was a good choice. Doing this exposes the underside of the instrument panel.
The entire instrument cluster has to come out. Four screws on the inside of the bezel itself, and two underneath on either side of the console plate. Take these screws out. My radio was oddly installed. Instead of the usual braces, there was a block of wood providing stability in the back by wedging it against the front of the instrument cluster. It was wacky. I pulled that out AFTER I removed the ***** and nuts from the front of the radio, which is all that's holding it to the face of the instrument cluster. There was a single support that held the side of the radio in place. If you have the original delco radio in there, you'll have multi-wire plastic plugs that snap into the back of it, and a single thick cable for the antenna. Disconnect these. Bottom line, radio has to come out to get to the removal of the instrument cluster.
There's a single massive plug for all the instruments right in the center of the cluster. Note the position of this plug, as it's not entirely obvious which end is up. Putting this in upside down would be hugely painful to have to reverse. Now, unseating this plug can be a bit of a challenge, but work it out slowly. The 'circuit board' it plugs into isn't a board at all, it's a flimsy sheet with circuit paths printed on it that 'snugs' around the massive plug that powers the instruments. Finesse it out.
With this, the entire cluster can come out, but, it's still pretty much wedged in place, so you'll need to work it out gently by lifting the dash pad in places to wiggle it free. NOTE- the top AC/Heat vents connect here. NOTE 2: There's a map light that's held together with a tiny plastic screw. I broke this pulling the cluster straight out. If I had it to do again, I'd pull the bottom of the cluster out first, expose this and separate it before pulling the cluster completely out. You'll see it when you start this step; knowing it's there is the key...which I didn't.
So now the whole cluster should come out. Be gentle. When I did this the lenses and colored indicator screens moved out of alignment. When I removed the instrument can from the console bezel, all of the little separators and spacers came out. Let me know if you make this mistake and I'll send you a pic of how it all goes back together. Now is the time to make some important choices. Example: If your clock doesn't work, replace it clocks are commonly non functional in many cars. If your cluster is ratty; replace it now.
On to the radio. It comes with a single mounting bar (strap), which I had to get creative with, since in place of the stock mounting brackets all I had was a block of wood...
I can send you a pic of what I did, which was to mount the strap to the back of the radio, then create a few bends which allowed me to mount the strap to the face of the instrument cluster. When I did this and tightened the nuts for each of the *****, the resulting assembly was pretty solid. I decided against re installing the wood block...
So now you'll have your instrument cluster, and radio installed into the cluster. The cluster plastic is pretty flimsy, so move it around as a single unit, but in my case, I found this was the easiest method for reassembly. I started by loose fitting the cluster, then replacing the instrument cluster plug into the flimsy 'circuit board. I then reattached the antenna and speaker cables.
From here, I connected up power. Both the constant hot and the switched hot have to be connected or the radio won't work (was so in my case). I used the cigarette lighter as the constant hot. At this point, I ground tested everything, and it worked great.
Reassembly is the reverse of everything I've explained thus far, although I can say that it takes as much finesse and wiggling to get the cluster back in as it does to get it out. Once it's in place, you generally won't find any screwhole alignment issues...or at least, you shouldn't.
So those are the main points. Let me know if you have any other questions or if you get stuck. Pictures are worth a million words, so let me know if you'd like to see a few and I can post them here.
Last edited by doccimmer; 03-19-2018 at 07:56 PM.
03-19-2018, 08:54 PM
#7
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Absolutely.
First- I really like the radio, and previous owner had a set of old school pioneers that sound pretty good, so I kept those. If you have the old stock speakers, pull them out, box them (I keep all original parts), and put in a newer set. The rears (if your C3 was so equipped) are easy to remove. The fronts are a bit tricky as the nuts nearest the windshield don't allow a lot of clearance for a tool.
Dissasembly.
Take the console side panels out first. There's three screws on each side- silver finish. I kept them in exactly the same location/position for reassembly. This was a good choice. Doing this exposes the underside of the instrument panel.
The entire instrument cluster has to come out. Four screws on the inside of the bezel itself, and two underneath on either side of the console plate. Take these screws out. My radio was oddly installed. Instead of the usual braces, there was a block of wood providing stability in the back by wedging it against the front of the instrument cluster. It was wacky. I pulled that out AFTER I removed the ***** and nuts from the front of the radio, which is all that's holding it to the face of the instrument cluster. There was a single support that held the side of the radio in place. If you have the original delco radio in there, you'll have multi-wire plastic plugs that snap into the back of it, and a single thick cable for the antenna. Disconnect these. Bottom line, radio has to come out to get to the removal of the instrument cluster.
There's a single massive plug for all the instruments right in the center of the cluster. Note the position of this plug, as it's not entirely obvious which end is up. Putting this in upside down would be hugely painful to have to reverse. Now, unseating this plug can be a bit of a challenge, but work it out slowly. The 'circuit board' it plugs into isn't a board at all, it's a flimsy sheet with circuit paths printed on it that 'snugs' around the massive plug that powers the instruments. Finesse it out.
With this, the entire cluster can come out, but, it's still pretty much wedged in place, so you'll need to work it out gently by lifting the dash pad in places to wiggle it free. NOTE- the top AC/Heat vents connect here. NOTE 2: There's a map light that's held together with a tiny plastic screw. I broke this pulling the cluster straight out. If I had it to do again, I'd pull the bottom of the cluster out first, expose this and separate it before pulling the cluster completely out. You'll see it when you start this step; knowing it's there is the key...which I didn't.
So now the whole cluster should come out. Be gentle. When I did this the lenses and colored indicator screens moved out of alignment. When I removed the instrument can from the console bezel, all of the little separators and spacers came out. Let me know if you make this mistake and I'll send you a pic of how it all goes back together. Now is the time to make some important choices. Example: If your clock doesn't work, replace it clocks are commonly non functional in many cars. If your cluster is ratty; replace it now.
On to the radio. It comes with a single mounting bar (strap), which I had to get creative with, since in place of the stock mounting brackets all I had was a block of wood...
I can send you a pic of what I did, which was to mount the strap to the back of the radio, then create a few bends which allowed me to mount the strap to the face of the instrument cluster. When I did this and tightened the nuts for each of the *****, the resulting assembly was pretty solid. I decided against re installing the wood block...
So now you'll have your instrument cluster, and radio installed into the cluster. The cluster plastic is pretty flimsy, so move it around as a single unit, but in my case, I found this was the easiest method for reassembly. I started by loose fitting the cluster, then replacing the instrument cluster plug into the flimsy 'circuit board. I then reattached the antenna and speaker cables.
From here, I connected up power. Both the constant hot and the switched hot have to be connected or the radio won't work (was so in my case). I used the cigarette lighter as the constant hot. At this point, I ground tested everything, and it worked great.
Reassembly is the reverse of everything I've explained thus far, although I can say that it takes as much finesse and wiggling to get the cluster back in as it does to get it out. Once it's in place, you generally won't find any screwhole alignment issues...or at least, you shouldn't.
So those are the main points. Let me know if you have any other questions or if you get stuck. Pictures are worth a million words, so let me know if you'd like to see a few and I can post them here.
First- I really like the radio, and previous owner had a set of old school pioneers that sound pretty good, so I kept those. If you have the old stock speakers, pull them out, box them (I keep all original parts), and put in a newer set. The rears (if your C3 was so equipped) are easy to remove. The fronts are a bit tricky as the nuts nearest the windshield don't allow a lot of clearance for a tool.
Dissasembly.
Take the console side panels out first. There's three screws on each side- silver finish. I kept them in exactly the same location/position for reassembly. This was a good choice. Doing this exposes the underside of the instrument panel.
The entire instrument cluster has to come out. Four screws on the inside of the bezel itself, and two underneath on either side of the console plate. Take these screws out. My radio was oddly installed. Instead of the usual braces, there was a block of wood providing stability in the back by wedging it against the front of the instrument cluster. It was wacky. I pulled that out AFTER I removed the ***** and nuts from the front of the radio, which is all that's holding it to the face of the instrument cluster. There was a single support that held the side of the radio in place. If you have the original delco radio in there, you'll have multi-wire plastic plugs that snap into the back of it, and a single thick cable for the antenna. Disconnect these. Bottom line, radio has to come out to get to the removal of the instrument cluster.
There's a single massive plug for all the instruments right in the center of the cluster. Note the position of this plug, as it's not entirely obvious which end is up. Putting this in upside down would be hugely painful to have to reverse. Now, unseating this plug can be a bit of a challenge, but work it out slowly. The 'circuit board' it plugs into isn't a board at all, it's a flimsy sheet with circuit paths printed on it that 'snugs' around the massive plug that powers the instruments. Finesse it out.
With this, the entire cluster can come out, but, it's still pretty much wedged in place, so you'll need to work it out gently by lifting the dash pad in places to wiggle it free. NOTE- the top AC/Heat vents connect here. NOTE 2: There's a map light that's held together with a tiny plastic screw. I broke this pulling the cluster straight out. If I had it to do again, I'd pull the bottom of the cluster out first, expose this and separate it before pulling the cluster completely out. You'll see it when you start this step; knowing it's there is the key...which I didn't.
So now the whole cluster should come out. Be gentle. When I did this the lenses and colored indicator screens moved out of alignment. When I removed the instrument can from the console bezel, all of the little separators and spacers came out. Let me know if you make this mistake and I'll send you a pic of how it all goes back together. Now is the time to make some important choices. Example: If your clock doesn't work, replace it clocks are commonly non functional in many cars. If your cluster is ratty; replace it now.
On to the radio. It comes with a single mounting bar (strap), which I had to get creative with, since in place of the stock mounting brackets all I had was a block of wood...
I can send you a pic of what I did, which was to mount the strap to the back of the radio, then create a few bends which allowed me to mount the strap to the face of the instrument cluster. When I did this and tightened the nuts for each of the *****, the resulting assembly was pretty solid. I decided against re installing the wood block...
So now you'll have your instrument cluster, and radio installed into the cluster. The cluster plastic is pretty flimsy, so move it around as a single unit, but in my case, I found this was the easiest method for reassembly. I started by loose fitting the cluster, then replacing the instrument cluster plug into the flimsy 'circuit board. I then reattached the antenna and speaker cables.
From here, I connected up power. Both the constant hot and the switched hot have to be connected or the radio won't work (was so in my case). I used the cigarette lighter as the constant hot. At this point, I ground tested everything, and it worked great.
Reassembly is the reverse of everything I've explained thus far, although I can say that it takes as much finesse and wiggling to get the cluster back in as it does to get it out. Once it's in place, you generally won't find any screwhole alignment issues...or at least, you shouldn't.
So those are the main points. Let me know if you have any other questions or if you get stuck. Pictures are worth a million words, so let me know if you'd like to see a few and I can post them here.
03-19-2018, 08:58 PM
#8
Race Director
Member Since: Apr 2011
Location: North of Toronto - Ontario
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Great descriptive write-up but I'm thinking he's (Navy01Coupe) got an earlier C3 and there's a few differences he'll run into but it's along the same lines
M
M
Last edited by Mooser; 03-19-2018 at 08:59 PM.
03-19-2018, 09:42 PM
#9
Melting Slicks
hope they have improved them, mine were crap.
1st one arrived broken in the box.
2nd unit wouldn't work as advertised on the audio input side, wouldn't sense the incoming music unless the input/phone/mp3 player was at max volume.
then the slightest lull in the music it cut out.
ended up in the bin years ago.
1st one arrived broken in the box.
2nd unit wouldn't work as advertised on the audio input side, wouldn't sense the incoming music unless the input/phone/mp3 player was at max volume.
then the slightest lull in the music it cut out.
ended up in the bin years ago.
03-20-2018, 10:13 AM
#10
Wow! Way more info than I was expecting. Thank you! I can easily see this becoming a "While I am here" project. I will have to stay focused and get a working radio. I'll have to review which gauges work and how deep I want to get. I have read two different ways to get to the dash speakers and neither sounds fun or easy.
Again...THANK YOU for the awesome response.
GO SPURS GO!!
Again...THANK YOU for the awesome response.
GO SPURS GO!!