Rusty Triumphs in Scotland

[Talbot]

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That Radio Cassette Player combo is the absolute sex. I love the style, love the functionality and would very much like to have it in every car I own.

Don't think I've ever wanted a radio more.

Edit. But I can't quote the image. Bah. Last image of the quoted post.

[captain_70s]

I knew the driver's floor of the Volvo was crusty...

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Chassis leg was full of shit, blocked drain, trapped water. Footwell was the same, trapped water straight into the seams.

The undercoating is so thick and dense it's impossible to know how far back the rust goes in the floor. Between the underseal and bitumen sound deadening pads you can barely put a hammer through it, despite it being rotten...

Fucksake.

[Eddie Honda]

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[Hooli]

You do seem to have a lot luck* buying old bricks.

[Eddie Honda]

IMG_20210606_120905_3_resize_22.jpg

That Radio Cassette Player combo is the absolute sex. I love the style, love the functionality and would very much like to have it in every car I own.

Don't think I've ever wanted a radio more.

Edit. But I can't quote the image. Bah. Last image of the quoted post.

Because you are technocripple

The CR-201 is just an earlier version of the CR-4041.

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Also available to fit the earlier 200 / 300 dashboards

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[Eddie Honda]

I knew the driver's floor of the Volvo was crusty...

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I knew you shouldn't have gone prodding it.

[captain_70s]

I didn't choose the weld life, the weld life chose me. Or something.

As I said on t'Beige I'd rather know about it now with 10 months of spare MOT and before spunking money fixing random niggles.

I've had quite enough of spending money on cars to find they're rotten with a week of MOT left in mid winter...

[DodgeRover]

But in Scotland winter is anytime it isn't mozzie session isn't it?

[Talbot]

I knew you shouldn't have gone prodding it.

As Arthur Scargil found out in the 1984 coal miners' strike: If you Pickett, it won't get better.

[captain_70s]

With the big fuck off holes obscured by carpet I can happily set that trifling matter to "ignore" and move onto more pressing things. Like BANGING TUNES.

So, the factory head unit was fucked. Well, it works, but something is shorting and the feed to the separate amp is either silent, fuzzy or punctuated by deafening pops and bouts of static. I looked at it, cleaned it, found nothing obviously wrong, wiggled all the cables and then put it in a corner.

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CMS206 on t'Beige gave me a radio he had in the garage, from a 1987 GLE. That had the wrong plugs, as it was for a car without the seperate amp. Bugger.

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I bought a adaptor cable from the Volvo loom to DIN to avoid butchering plugs. This had the right connector, but was designed for a non-amp setup as well. Bugger.

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In order to adapt a non-amp radio to the amp setup would require using some wires from the head unit connector and getting the speaker connections from the amp connector down by the driver's knees. Essentially it'd be easier bypass the loom at just wire the radio anew.

I had a Unipart Triumph Acclaim cassette player that I'd never fitted to the Triumph because the wires had been chopped way too short, the Acclaim had a generic cassette deck fitted with pre-butchered wiring. Hmmmm.

So, the Unipart unit had it's cables enlengthened.

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The generic one was removed.

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And the factory spec unit fitted.

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Then I moved to the Volvo and started looking at how I was going to do the wiring. The top diagram is a standard radio setup, the lower one is the setup for cars with the separate amp:

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I figured I'd hack into the fuse box for a switched live and earth and wire the speakers in from scratch. However I then made a discovery. The solid core wiring I was using was exactly the right size to snuggly jam into the Volvo's original connectors.

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This means that for a temp install I didn't need to run long cables or hack the loom about. HANDY.

Finally I wedge the head unit in with self adhesive sound deadening foam and finished it off using the original Volvo radio surround.

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Naturally the driver's side speaker is blown and sounds like shit, but some tunes is better than no tunes.

Then I started battling with the earthing problems...

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So, the car mostly works normally. Except if you indicate left, when the rear wiper will do a single sweep. If you have the headlights on and indicate left all the front left light pulse and the rear wiper runs constantly until the lights are turned off and back on again... And the washer motor pulses... And sometimes the windscreen wipers also activate, just to mix things up.

First port of call were the earthing blocks on the inner wings down the corners of the engine bay. First the one behind the air box.

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Removing the (broken) airbox reveals the washer bottle

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And tucked right where it's a pain to get at, the earthing block:

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This was removed and cleaned up as it was properly grotty. The spade connectors had sandpaper wedged down them, but really they need replacing or dunking in something corrosive...

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I then did the same thing with the block on the driver's side, you remove the battery to get at this, while I was there I admired my rot free battery tray.

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All back together aaaaaaand, it was just as bad as before. No change. Bugger.

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Now, the loom has been hacked around for a variety of uses, including a radio a beacon light and an aftermarket alarm. So I set about ripping out as much unrequired wiring as possible...

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This was just from the bulkhead forwards, there is more wiring going through the cabin to the boot...

Then I went to start the car and it wouldn't. Thankfully this was because I'd left the under bonnet light on for two days and flattened the battery. Oops.

The Acclaim can only be used in cooler temps and on low speed runs as the radiator is, to use the technical term, fucked.

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I've got a mk3 Polo rad that shall be modded in for MOAR COOLING.

The shit trim tape also meant the rubbing strips started peeling off in the hot weather and I got sick of this happening:

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So I did this:

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The main issue is getting the remaining tape off the car. It's a pain in the arse. Still a cool car though...

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