Vintage Radio Wiring Question

[RRoller123]

Here is the radio I bought that is supposed to have come out of a 79 Spider. It is an Audiovox C525A:



But... having learned here from the Forum that the radios were put in of somewhat random manufacture by US dealers, it is possible that my original Radio, a Sanyo FTC4 with Cassette, may also be an authentic vintage:



Sooo, I guess I will make a new faceplate in Madrone Burl and put it back in, since it works. And the wiring is already there, so my original thread question is now obsolete. I just need to do a little research on the vintage of this radio to see if it was manufactured during the period of 1980. I will post some photos of the new faceplate. (The old one was badly warped and looked like crap).

[RRoller123]

Well here is a link that could be very useful to the Forum! It gives the year of manufacture for various electronics components, and indeed my Sanyo FTC4 was made in 1980. So back into the dash it goes, since it is now reasonable to assume that it was US dealer installed, or barring that, it certainly is vintage authentic.

http://www.pacparts.com/library/default.cfm

[RRoller123]

Radio wiring completed, after a lot of monkeying around correcting PO soldering mess.



Installed the radio after fabricating a new faceplate bezel and the dash is now fully complete. Yahoo! Been a long time coming.

[VintageRadioWiring]

Hello RRoller123. Hopefully you can answer some vintage radio wiring questions for me

i have a Sanyo FTC4 with Cassette, identical to the one in your '80 FI Spider 2000 and I am feeling confused about how to connect it because mine doesn't have a wiring diagram. Your post is the only thing on the internet that even makes a reference to the existence of this machine so I'm praying that you can be of some assistance to me.
Please help me understand which wire goes where?
Thanks so much

Sooo, I guess I will make a new faceplate in Madrone Burl and put my original Sanyo FTC4 back in, since it works. And the wiring is already there, so my original thread question is now obsolete.

[RRoller123]

Hi VintageRadioWiring:

In response to your question, I have no idea about the exact wiring, other than there are usually the following connections on vintage car radios:

4 speaker wires. These are easily identified, should be left and right pairs of similar color set, maybe one striped and one solid.

2 power wires (one may be always hot, to keep the clock, presets, etc going). The other is switched and turns the radio on and off. A little experimentation with a battery will tell which is which. If I remember correctly, there is only 1 power wire on our radio.

1 ground wire.

One really excellent resource to determine the vintage of many electronic parts is this site: http://www.pacparts.com/library/default.cfm

It gives year of manufacture for hundreds of different audio components, and I used it to determine with a high degree of certainty that the Sanyo in my car is original, vintage 1980. The existence of yours in the same model year Spider really supports this assumption.

Hope that helps!

Pete

[Nanonevol]

My car radio is usually on WBZ-AM or WRKO. News, traffic and weather. If I want to hear music it's going to be on a college station or a public radio station for maybe folk, blues or ethnic music. Classic rock is ok but today's popular music is a wasteland.

[RRoller123]

Jeff from Noon to three, Howie from three to seven.