What did you do with your Thunderbird Today?

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.
 
Generalee0527 said:
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.
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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?

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Bill H said:
The white lettering on your gear looks brand new….nice maintenance.
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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.
 
Bill H said:
The white lettering on your gear looks brand new….nice maintenance.
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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. 8-)

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Generalee0527 said:
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.
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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.
 
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.CDbelts.jpg
 
Kidd-7 said:
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.
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Yeah that was my thinking, but I’m not so sure after some discussion a week or two ago about it here:

XR7-4.6

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

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?

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
 
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.
 
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.
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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.

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Test drive tomorrow.
 
Duralast Gold battery died a couple of days ago, so got a new battery yesterday. Driving around last Friday, I was getting slow engine starts. So on Saturday, hooked up the charger/desulfanator...left it on all night and everything looked good the next morning at 12.7V...then a little while later on Sunday, tested with my multimeter and was reading 10.4V. Then Monday, same 10.4V reading, confirming that one of the cells had failed. Then hooked up the charger again for giggles and it displayed a bad battery and refused to charge it. Tried starting the car...nothing. Checked for parasitic draws...none. But the headlights still worked with car off...but they're LED's, so very little battery power needed.

Always used Duralast Gold for many years, but the best I could get out of them in Vegas was 3-3.5 years...just after the warranty expires. About 2 years ago, learned & read about desulfenating batteries, so bought a unit and started desulfenating & charging the current Gold then, when it was already 3.5 years old...and was able to extend the 3-year lifespan to 5.5 years before it took a dump a couple of days ago.
It's a win, since these batteries are now $210.

But this time went with a Walmart EverStart Maxx with a 3-year warranty. From everything I've read, they're excellent batteries and made by the same company that makes the Duralast Gold...but the EverStart Maxx batteries are only $140.

$210 vs. $140 for basically the same battery with a different brand label...sold!
Hefted my Duralast over to Wallyworld for the core and bought the EverStart.

In Vegas, it just doesn't matter how good a battery you buy...and I've tried several top-end batteries in all the years I've owned cars in Vegas...the summer heat just murders them prematurely and limits their lifespan, even when garaged. Even back years ago, when Duralast Golds had a 5-year warranty and advertised 7-8-year lifespans...3 years was the best you could get out of them, but at least they would pro-rate them back then. Now, most high-end batteries, regardless of brand, are 3-year free replacement warranties and that's it.

Anyway...did the usual prep work for the new battery, installed it...and The Car fired right up.
Engine off - Batt measured 12.7V+
Engine on – Batt measured about 14.5V
Engine on – Alternator output measured 14.6V

All looks good now.
Vroom-vroom 8-)

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Trunk Monkey said:
Love that last picture. Car looks great!
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Thank you.
I want to submit a great photo of the car to Rock Auto for their magnet thing...so I've been trying to find a nice place to take good pics of her.
Not happy yet, since I keep finding flaws, shadows, bad backgrounds, etc. But I'm getting close, as I learn more.
 
Lesser known fact, they’re are only 3 battery manufacturers in the US.

I’m also running the Everstart Max in both my Tbirds, so far it’s exceed my expectations. I only use to use Interstate, but after the last one only last 2 years I started doing some research.
 
For the record I have had fantastic luck with interstate batteries, I put one in my dads truck back in dec 2021 and the truck sits a lot so its on a smart trickle charger but its worked flawlessly, and I put a higher cca interstate in my brothers subaru legacy and its worked amazing and its a hard driven daily driver, even in super cold winters and my crv has a interstate from 2022 and it still works great. obviously not denying your experience but I guess my point is that anyone else frustrated that car parts these days seem to be a lottery?
 
I got my new specialty plates!

I learned that if someone cancels or lets their registration expire and they don’t renew it, they have a year and a day before it up for grabs.
I always thought it would be cool to have US94SC, My current plate was so close, just a letter off.
So, I did some research and found out that US94SC was available, it was cancelled back in 2021, so I called the special plates department and they approved it, and it came in the mail today!

My car is a 94 and kinda an SC clone, but cooler lol. You can’t request a custom specialty plate in this state, so I got pretty lucky here.

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See if you can track down an SC 145MPH speedo while you're in there!
 
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