Technical 55 T Bird radio wireing.

I have a radio for a 55 T Bird that is supposed to be refurbished. I want to test it before trying to sell but not sure about 6v pos ground. 2 wires on radio, black and brown. Black wire to positive and brown to neg? The speaker plug in has 3 ports going in but only two coming out. So I ***ume it doesn't matter which way these hook to speaker? Thanks, never messed with pos ground before.

 

I'm remembering this from the mid '60s so don't take it as gospel. The one with the fuse holder goes to battery power. The ground is through the radio case. The bullet connector will be for the dial lamp. I think you're right about the speaker.

 

Galaxie is correct. The fuse goes to the “ungrounded” terminal, in this case the negative (-). The case goes to the “grounded” terminal, in this case positive (+). Backwards from today. On that old ******** unit you’ll probably need a 6v battery, a charger or power supply won’t do it. And the warm up time is long if you’re not used to tubes. The ground needs to go to the antenna base too if you’re trying to pull in a signal. Try a local channel with Larry Welk on it, that’s what the radio is used to getting.

 

I may be reading it wrong but it looks to me like one of you is saying hot wire to fuse side and the other is saying ground to fuse side?

 

55 TBirds are positive ground. That may be the cause of the confusion.

 

Yes. The positive ground is what I was stressing. IIRC, reversing one of those old radios damages or destroys them. Positive ground is pretty rare now, most others had gone to the negative ground before Ford did. I think some foreign makes used it even later.

 

I hope you are successful in getting it checked out. I would also be curious as to how it sells.