ditching the old radio, question about mounts...

[Matt.L]

i want to get a new head unit in my 72 240z but i can't find mounts or even info on if something modern would fit.

any advice would be greatly approciated

[GunnerRob]

Hi Matt,

The first thing I would do is to find out if the old radio is a factory original, especially if it's working. If you're not interested in being able to restore your Z back into original condition in the future, I would think there are some people here that would be interested in your old unit. When I switched out mine I kept the radio that came in the car when bought new (it was a dealer installed option - with an 8 track tape player!).

As far as what or where to find a new unit to install, I can't help you there. I did this same thing as you are trying to do, but that was 13 years ago. BTW, my new unit then was made by Pioneer, round knobs and all!

Good luck in your endevour!

[mdbrandy]

The problem is the dual shaft design that older cars need if you don't want to modify the opening. Crutchfield only shows one cassette/receiver that will fit my '78 280Z:

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-7gZse4tW6bE/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?g=200&I=140MARB102

and of course, you might not consider that "modern" . In my car, the PO put a nice new CD/receiver in the glove box and left the original radio in place. Kind of kills off the glove box space, and it is inconvenient. If I wanted to cut up my console, I could probably mod the opening to fit something new, but I just bought the new console a year ago....

[chickenwafer]

I am in the process of putting in a new head unit. I found that the new aftermarket head unit fits easily without any real modification to the dash. The only problem I am having is wiring the unit up. I can't find any diagrams anywhere of my 260Z's wiring harness for the stereo so I am having to trace wires and it isn't going too great. I found a wiring harness connector at Walmart that said it was for 1974 and up Nissan's for the head unit, so I bought it but it doesn't work. Looks like I will have to splice and soilder. No plug-n-play connectors out there I guess.

If anyone has a wiring diagram for a 260 (I bet they're all the same) it would be greatly appreciatted!!!

Dave

[matria]

Dave

If you have a fax machine, I can fax the appropriate pages from my 260z fsm. Let me know.

Skip

[civ104]

I have a Kenwood KRC-2007 cassette receiver ready to install as soon as the paint and engine swap are complete. It is a dual shaft receiver with many very modern features, including 30 station presets, digtital readout and clock, pre-out with fader control. I can put up with no CD built in because I don't want to do any modification to the daqsh area and it's easy to get a small transmitter to broadcast into the FM receiver from a digital music player. I've got one that will play about 30 hours.

[TomoHawk]

There is a company that will take your "old" radio, and gut it and put in new electrics so you have a modern radio with the old face.

http://www.custom-autosound.com/

[mlc240z]

i'm putting in an old dual shaft pioneer that i had saved from one of my old cars (i knew there was a reason i kept it). i am going to fashion a faceplate from either wood or a scrap piece of plastic. the only problem i'm having is the width of the replacement radio. it's appears to be too wide to fit the antenna switch next to it within the same space. from pictures i've seen, the original radio had a spot for the switch next to the radio.

were they much thinner than aftermarket radios?

has anybody else done this swap?

if so, where did you mount the power antenna switch?

[Bambikiller240]

In one of the Z's I owned in the 80's, I mounted the antenna switch on the passenger side of the console, pretty much right along side the radio (just slightly under the front of the dash). I had one of those protective covers over the toggle switch to eliminate any chance of a passenger accidently activating the switch.

[Ricklandia]

What the Classic Z World NEEDS... is a two pole AM/FM proper size stereo that simply has a BUILT-IN harddrive or flash memory to store MP3 music (ala iPod or other MP3 players). Why no one makes one is beyond me. You can buy some pretty decent MP3 players for next to nothing. I seriously wonder what it would take to make a head unit that simply has a USB port built into the face so that all you would need to do would be to plug in a flash memory stick and either play, or download to the head storage.

IMHO, multi CD disc changers are passe. When the stereo in my Miata died, I shopped around, found a decent Panasonic AM/FM/CD/MP3 player for less than $100 on sale. If you think a Z has no storage, try on a Miata for size. With MP3 capabilities, I can carry virtually every song/album I will ever want to listen to on only 3 CD's. If I got picky, I could probably pare it down to one. But better yet, if I could simply put it onto a flash memory stick and pop it in...? How sweet would THAT be!

[TomoHawk]

Right.

At 3 Gigs, the largest of the USB drives would hold about 4 CDs worth.

thx

[Ricklandia]

The thought just occured to me...

Why not an indash CD/mp3 player designed around the 3" mini-cd format? They hold ~300mb worth of data which is still ~8hrs worth of MP3 music. Not at home right now to measure, but I wonder just how wide the center section of the stock radio cutout is? I've got an original radio at home, and a working Kenwood Cassette unit in the car now installed by the PO. Unfortunately, the LCD display on the Kenwood is going bad (only displays ~half of the digit sections). The PO also cut the center console to install an EQ/Amp just above the regular choke light indicator. :/

MP3 sure would be nice but I'm not sure I want to cut the dash. Question: the piece that would need to be cut to install a "modern sized" car stereo, is that the plastic center piece? or is it an underlaying steel piece? I haven't take mine apart yet to investigate.

BTW, while surfing the subject, came across this for those on a budget:

http://www.crutchfield.com/S-ephfQqNuT5p/cgi-bin/ProdView.asp?g=200&id=essential_info&i=140MARB102