Car Audio Question

[puckmaster]

I recently picked up a cherry 1977 Buick Electra. It has all the cool stuff, mainly a mafia- sized trunk, 403 CU engine, and the best of all, an oldschool 8-track player. Now i really like the look of the dash with the 8 track in it, but i really want a cd player somehow in it. Is There a way to just put in a normal headphone plug into it and then plug a portable cd player into the other end? I know on an old 79 bronco i just worked on, the plug coming from the antenna had a plug similar to a plug on headphones. Well, any advice would be greatly apreciated, and i really dont want to change the deck out. I also tried a FM transmitter that works like total crap.

[Jaan]

I suppose you could use an 8 track to cassette converter ... and then use a CD cassette adaptor to go into that. I suppose if you had the skills you could bypass all that and just take the 8 track adaptor and cassette adaptror and make them into one.

The FM converters that go right into the FM antenna work pretty good though. I have a 12 disk CD changer that I did that with because I work in a big city and I didn't want anything to get stolen. Even though I got the changer and really nice speakers in her, from the outside she looks stock.

So, I guess that's 3 choices there (c:

[puckmaster]

oh crap, didnt really read your post to closly. just out of curriosity, what kind of car is it?

[tony3]

FM transmitter would work, or you could rig a headunit somewhere out of sight with Aux inputs and just use them to run the cd player. That would require some fancy work though.

[Jaan]

oh crap, didnt really read your post to closly. just out of curriosity, what kind of car is it?Mine? 1997 3/4 ton 4x4 Chevy Pickup with a 454 V8 (c: The same CD changer would work in your car too, as long as it has FM radio. The only difference between your car and newer GM cars, at least when it comes to antenna leads, is the size of the leads ... but you can get adaptors cheap enough. I'm assuming of course, that if your car has the optional 8 track it has an FM Stereo as well.

I don't think an 8 track adaptor would be too hard to make for a CD player though, but it wouldn't be any better than the FM modulator unit. If you put some decent speakers in the car she wouldn't sound too bad either. Just get some matched to the radio you have already ... meaning really nice expensive high end speakers wouldn't necessarily sound good with a factory radio since they're meant to be driven by more powerful units. You need something with the same general power range as the radio and a high sensitivity so the speakers would sound louder. Definitely get 3 way speakers too so you can hear the range.

A company called Crutchfield is GREAT for a project like this. They give you all the paperwork on how to take the car apart to install stuff, and all the adaptors you need so you don't have to cut any wires. They also will tell you exactly what will fit in your car.

That's a nice car by the way. I love those old bombers, they're like couches with wheels. My first car was a 1970 Delta 88 and if I ever see a convertable version in good shape I'll buy it in a heartbeat.