1986 crown vic non premium sound upgrades?

[DrHax]

I got back my crown victoria and after driving around in a 2000 buick I realized just how wonky my audio system was. The old radio is a Am/Stereo non digital unit. It's been having issues keeping a station without needing to be slapped. it there's a lot of static and such in it, also it is original to the car. I confirmed this by pulling it out today and seeing the pile of dust. I originally wanted to put in my double din system I installed into my 2001 saturn sc2 which is a touchscreen quad core android gps system.. But after much thought.. and driving back home with my phone in my lap playing some tame impala music and wanting to get louder and reaching for an invisible knob I realize I adored the old system.

There's something about the two knobs that just seems fitting and I love it. So I got to thinking.. How can I upgrade this system while staying period? I love the old radio. I am bidding on a FM/AM stereo with a cassette deck pulled from an 85 grand marquis.

mainly because I want a way to put an AUX in.. You know those cassettes with the headphone plug tail on them. But I wonder.. is there a way for me to fix the issues my stock radio has? I really do like how clean and simple it looks. If I could find a way to wire in an AUX cable I freaking would in a heartbeat. I know there was underdash cassettes that worked.. so there must be some way to do this?

Also I acquired awhile back a seemly unused Sony XM-e7 equalizer.. Original plans were to use it with an old school cassette deck in my blue 1968 beetle.. Buuuut after getting a blue 1986 crown victoria ( notice something odd about my cars?) I kind've want to see if I could wire this sucker into the radio for craps and giggles.

Any thoughts on this subject matter? I really enjoy the "period" look that this car has.

[gadget73]

Power antenna or regular? The power antennas get stupid and break internally between the cable and the antenna. Can't really fix it, but it would explain why the tuner doesn't tune so well. Might also just be that its 30 years old and needs a rebuild. The speakers are also usually pretty horrible, so you'll likely need to upgrade those as well. Honestly the non-premium stuff just ain't that great no matter what you do to it.


Aux input isn't real easy without a fair bit of surgery. The usual method involves breaking the connection between the input to the volume control and the volume control itself, and looping it through some sort of connector that can break the connection and inject a new one. The tape adapter honestly is the easy way to get there.

[Tiggie]

There are people that do stock look modern internal radio conversions - but they are pricey!

I think your dash would just have the rectangle radio hole, right ( no separate knob holes)? While it does look different, I think your best cheap option would be to just go aftermarket modern deck. For the price, the sound quality can't be beaten.

If you have real knob holes, custom autosound makes modern radios that fit perfectly and look somewhat vintage. Order it for a '79 pickup.

[DrHax]

It's an regular opening. I am debating on what I want to do. Its a toss up between modifying it or not.

[magnus77]

I swapped a new head unit into my 85, you would have to rewire the speakers because all modern units required powered source AND return (ground) lines. The older ones would just the negative to the frame as a ground i believe. Might as well get a cheap used sub at that point and do it all at once - which is where i am now. Head unit is literally 100000x better.

[DrHax]

Hmm. How do those harness adapters fair? Looks like my car has the square plug style.

[DerekTheGreat]

What magnus77 said. My '85 was the same way, common ground and had the same tune you've got. POS. You get used to it and think its ok until you hear something else. There are companies who make knobbed stereos with aux inputs:
http://www.sonicelectronix.com/cat_i...r-stereos.html
But they might not be exactly what you want and you'd still have to do some rewiring. I ended up adapting a digital tape deck to my '85 (like I posted in your other thread) and used the tape adaptor thing to run my ipod. It was lame but better than nothing as since I knew I was going to sell the car I wasn't going to do all the wiring. Don't think you'll be able to find an adaptor that will do what you want it to do. I looked and ended up finding harnesses from inbetween year cars and making one myself, as butchering the factory harnesses isn't something I'm fond of.

[Whosondephone]

I'm not familiar with that radio. However I would highly recommend using a Sony tape adapter. In my opinion they are by far the best tape adapters around. I'm using one in my 86 Grand marquis with the premium sound system. I've settled on a CPA-7 using the line out. The CPA-9 being the newest might work better with the headphone out.