What did you do with your Thunderbird Today?

[Kidd-7]

Anything is possible.
You’d have to take the speaker output of the radio and put that through a line level converter, then RCAs to the new amp.
Or potentially that might be line level to the stock amp.

 

[NEURO]

Don't even....unless you have to. My experience w/ old oem stereos is they suck especially when they get some age on them. My cd player needs a belt.

I still have a factory Premium Sound system with the CD player. Everything still works great, but is the CD player's belt still available and where from, as well as other parts, in case they're ever needed to repair the stereo?

 

[Bill H]

The white lettering on your gear looks brand new….nice maintenance.

 

[Generalee0527]

The white lettering on your gear looks brand new….nice maintenance.

Yeah, mine looks old and the coating on the Vol button is bubbly and starting to come off. i can't remember the company that i've bought belts from for my home cd carosel but that was a decade ago. Basically square section o-ring and length must be on the money.

 

[NEURO]

The white lettering on your gear looks brand new….nice maintenance.

Thanx...she's been garaged most of her life, so much of the car is in great condition. I live in Vegas and the summer sun/heat would have destroyed her within a few years if not garaged.

I maintain & clean her religiously. Every month, I clean and 'moisturize' the interior. And every 3 months, I lubricate all locks, hinges, etc...then I have 6 & 12 month schedules of things to clean & maintain. Meg's products work great for interior & exterior and have been using them for years. This is what I use for the interior plastic & vinyl, like the dash, console, control panels, etc.

A man must keep his beautiful women clean and sparkly.

 

[NEURO]

Yeah, mine looks old and the coating on the Vol button is bubbly and starting to come off. i can't remember the company that i've bought belts from for my home cd carosel but that was a decade ago. Basically square section o-ring and length must be on the money.

Yeah, I know what you mean. I've disassembled CD/DVD players for PC's and that belt has to be exact. That's why I was wondering if you knew if the car's CD belt were still available and from where.

 

[Generalee0527]

I don't want to mess w/ my daily driver until I can spend the time to fix it. I know it will be a fight to get out and my recent luck had me bleeding and cursing. When I get to doing the timing chains I'll consider the folks Google found.

 

[XR7-4.6]

Anything is possible.
You’d have to take the speaker output of the radio and put that through a line level converter, then RCAs to the new amp.
Or potentially that might be line level to the stock amp.

Yeah that was my thinking, but I’m not so sure after some discussion a week or two ago about it here:

Post in thread 'The Unofficial "Ask a Stupid Question" Thread'

Nov 8, 2025

So I’m considering something silly, if I were to hook up the factory JBL cassette deck to an aftermarket amplifier what would be a decent choice with 4 channels and a dedicated sub out? I’m not looking for big audio, but sound quality/loudness close to what I have in the Alpine head unit I currently run.

Also I know there are an abundance of bypass cables for the premium sound but is there a premium sound to RCA adapter out there I’m missing?

Is there a fatal flaw to this whole idea?

• XR7-4.6

It seems logical to me what’s coming out of the head should be line level since that’s the whole point of having a separate amp, but I suppose it could be slightly more amplified by the preamp than an aftermarket deck at line level

I’ll probably try wiring it directly to the amp first and if it sounds like poo I’ll get a line out converter

 

[Kidd-7]

Factory car audio in the 90s was questionable. I do remember factory amps having speaker level from the head unit to the amp back then. You could test with an O scope if you have one.

 

[Kurt K]

So I replaced the broken odometer gears and was reminded that I'm my own worst enemy when doing repairs on my 92 SC. I mounted the run LED and empty reservoir LEDs for my meth injection next to the boost gauge. There are several wires that snake between the cluster and black cover that are hard to deal with when the dash piece is still connected via the LED wires for my wide-band O2.

The O.Meter wide-band O2 LED and reset button are mounted to the dash surround and the LED wires are way shorter than they should be.



Test drive tomorrow.