To Cut or Not To Cut

[esoteric]

One of our Birds is a 1980 Turbo TA and my wife is complaining about the sound system. Wants the ole' CD Player and I am really torn as to what to do.

A) Take out the old perfectly working AM/FM Cassette and cut a hole for the CD Player?

B) Get one of those in the glove box or in the trunk CD-FM player devices

The TA is really in great original condition with just 54K miles on her. So please help me decide and what kind of obsticals will I come up against. Was there an 8 track option that might lend itself to receiving a CD player?

Thanks

[Joe 1320]

One of our Birds is a 1980 Turbo TA and my wife is complaining about the sound system. Wants the ole' CD Player and I am really torn as to what to do.

A) Take out the old perfectly working AM/FM Cassette and cut a hole for the CD Player?

B) Get one of those in the glove box or in the trunk CD-FM player devices

The TA is really in great original condition with just 54K miles on her. So please help me decide and what kind of obsticals will I come up against. Was there an 8 track option that might lend itself to receiving a CD player?

Thanks

Do not under any circumstances cut anything. With that car, I would simply get a hidden system with remote and leave the factory one alone for best asthetics and keeping the car's value.

[BadWS6]

dont cut please

get a hidden system

[fastTa]

There are two distinct schools of thought on this. You have the purists who will only restore cars back to the exact way in which they were produced at the factory and will not think of cutting or modifying the car in any way.

Then you have the car guys who aren't afraid of modifying their cars in any way to make them unique and to make their cars reflect their personality. And in my opinion I just couldn't imagine not allowing yourself to be creative with no limits with your car.

Now I could see if we were talking about a 1970 Hemi Cuda or a 1970 Chevelle SS LS6 vert......which are both worth millions.

I have had the pleasure of installing aftermarket systems in many show winning cars. I just did 2 systems, one in a 1967 Camaro RS showcar, and one in a 1934 Ford Sedan Delivery. We did lots of cutting on both cars and the results were amazing and the owner loved it.

I say go for it. It's your car....do what you want with it. You'll find that the majority of restored hotrods, musclecars, and classics at car shows have aftermarket stereo systems in them that required modification and cutting. It's no big deal at all and has become mainstream. I would die a slow death if I was forced to keep any factory stereo in one of my car's!

[MN6WS6]

I say cut it, but do it yourself. There are a lot of places that either A) won't touch the car because of it's age, or B) will hack the heck out of it and it will look crappy. Finding a shop that is trustworthy is hard to do, as even some of these big wigs on multi-million dollar TV shows will whip out "the bigger hammer" when finesse is required.

There is one thing I'd like to suggest though. If you do cut it, and if you have any 12 volt knowledge, consider remote mounting the faceplate. What I mean is, only cut a slot for the CD to slide through, and make a ribbon cable to mount the CD face somewhere else, or even in front of that slot on the radio. It's time consuming, but instead of hacking out a ton of metal, you're only removing enough for a CD to slide through, not a full DIN size hole. It's semantics, I know, because cutting is cutting, but at least most of the original metal is still there and makes putting it back one day that much easier.

I'm with fastTA on this one, but with one exception. I could understand if you had a completely original, unrestored, Barrett-Jackson brings you more than a million dollars car, and you not wanting to cut it. But, even the best restorations have had stuff cut out, rewelded, new fabrication, and probably even the old fix John Doe's car stereo hack job in the dash, so the keeping it totally stock is just a farce. If the car is not 100% UNRESTORED, then you're not hurting anything. And the fact that 2nd gen TA's will never bring the money that their Camaro counterparts do (and certainly not the first gens bring), then you're not really losing anything in the long run.

[Black97]

I removed the original stereo from my 81 Corvette and installed a new HU with a 10 disk changer. I was worried that a shop would do a hack job. So I did all the cutting, fitting and installation while I had a shop hook up the wiring.

The previous owner already had an equalizer & amplifier plus two sh... speakers installed.

The wiring ended up being a problem. I would get a buzzing sound over the speakers. They re-wired some stuff and installed filters until it was gone. Once in a while when the car was sitting there for a while and it was really humid, you could hear some electrical interference until the whatever it was warmed up.

I found a shop now that I trust and anything they installed for me has looked great / professional.

[Black97]

Of course another option would be an Ipod and a FM modulator. I use this gadget here with my Ipod Mini in the TA and Jeep.

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProdu...duct_Id=257270

Depending where you cigarette lighter is it might not work as good but there are other modulators.

[toddwirges]

The modulator is an excellent suggestion but I would recommend getting an in-line one that is plugged in between the antenna and radio.

The pure FM broadcast ones are very sporadic in thier performance and you will get better results with a wired one.

The easiest route here is to work with an Ipod or similar MP3 player, but there are also MP3 capable CD changers should you want that. Inline antenna adapter, mount the changer remote somewhere, done.

If you end up deciding to cut, take a good long look at the entire picture. Consider not only a head unit but also at least aftermarket speakers and possibly seperate amps and possibly a small sub. Chances are your stock speakers are very tired and need to be considered part of the equation.

Panasonic has recently started making head units with digital amplifiers that put out something like 30 watts rms / 70 peak. One of those paired with stock sized aftermarket speakers could make good sound.

[esoteric]

Well a little more on the subject, this car will NEVER be for sale until I am dead and as for the next owner well frankly I don't give a rat about him/her. Just hope they LOVE the car as much as I do.

I think the stock stereo is NEAT-O. I really do, it has the amp boot switch, and it was one of the first clock/tape digital systems in a car. That does make it sort neat-o. But the tunes just SUCK. I like the idea of the slot and the faceplate thing.

But the last thing was, did this car have an 8-track option. It really looks like the lower center console has a spot for it where the Turbo Light HIGH/Low switch is.

Should I post a pic? Cause I am thinking get a second cover, cut that up and keep the original for some day down the road. That way both stay. I have a 70 Cutlass like this.