I’m no expert a hack at best but I have watched a couple YouTube videos about installing a BT amp in an older car . I took it a step further. This is the radio out of my 57 Fairlane. I removed everything I could. I ground a hole in the bottom of two of the vacuum tubes and glued a yellow led bulb into them . I replaced the 12v bulb above the dial with a led bulb . I cut the back off the stock volume switch and ground a flat on the shaft . This slid into the slot on the BT amp off/on/ volume switch.
There are other BT amps that have dual speaker outlets available. The radio will only play Bluetooth off my phone . I had looked into sending my radio to one of am/fm Bluetooth conversion sites but felt this fit my needs and pocket book The next victim is the radio for my 47 Merc . It is in bad shape . Bare wires and damaged components. Cosmetically it fits the crusty Merc
neat! I did a 1/8" phone jack amp in my 62 Corvette...got a free Corvair radio, and did some surgery on it. I didn't end up with any good pictures of the inside of the finished installation, though. I used the original switch and volume control, and it's mono, since there's only one speaker location in the car. I plug it into an old mp3 player, and having the volume control in the original radio, as you know, makes it really useful, compared to having just an amplifier with no volume control. You can also buy a 1/8" inline volume control, and use normal car stereo amp, I have that setup on another off topic car.
Looks good squirrel . Let’s keep sharing ideas . As we all know there’s more than one way to skin a cat .
Checkout my thread on how I updated my stock 49 Buick Radio with a Retro Sound unit. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/retrosound-in-my-49-buick-radio.1313541/
That is a great "mechanical" solution for those that are electronically challenged. Especially if the radio in not working. People get fooled by the volume control [pot] still working One caveat, do not connect the bluetooth amp direct to the battery [via fuse] If you switch off the phone , you can leave the amp going 24/7 without knowing about it. Old cars usually don't have an accessory position on the ignition. If you like listening to the radio while parked "drinking coffee and eating burgers" you risk burning the points /coil if the amp is connected to the ignition. On my 57 Chevy ,I made a latching relay with a loop so it stays latched on with the ignition switched off [it requires ignition to "arm it"] The loop is broken via the door opening That is so cool
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