Has anyone ever seen this before or any good guesses at what it was for. Clearly someone many years ago felt it was important to have installed, I don't believe it is a stock item.
Any help very much appreciated.
Tks
Dan
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Have a look at the attached pics. There is a control knob of some sort that has been there as long as I've owned the car, 20 years, and I have no idea what its function was. As you can see the wires have been cut and ive never seen any evidence of where they may have previously led. Ive never bothered to ask the question before as everything in the car seemed to work fine including the radio.
Has anyone ever seen this before or any good guesses at what it was for. Clearly someone many years ago felt it was important to have installed, I don't believe it is a stock item.
Any help very much appreciated.
Tks
Dan -
Re: 66 radio side panel mystery
When you turn it, is it stepped positions (control functions?) or variable resistance (volume?) Don H. -
Re: 66 radio side panel mystery
Maybe it's a ganged Potentiometer.....i.e. a dual variable resistor.
Maybe they had a 2 channel stereo with no Front to Rear balance setup. I see 2 pairs of wires(Brn & Brn/Wt tracer) probably the output for 2 speakers.
Grn is likely Common as they're jumpered to multiple taps on the Pot, and the other 4(Wt,Yel,Red,Brn) are 2 pairs likely for the 2 other speakers only. All 5 look like a trailer wiring flat ribbon cable.
My guess is someone added a set of rear speakers, and made their own "Fader", to balance the stereo speakers Fr/Rr. The old stereos usually had Left to Right balance built in and they cleverly added the pot for greater Fr/Rr control.
If it's a "click" switch, maybe just to switch from Front pair of speakers to Rear, or vice versa. If the car has sidepipes, switching to Front may have been better to hear over the exhaust noise.
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Re: 66 radio side panel mystery
It does not have "stepped" positions, its certainly more like a volume control knob. There is no evidence of any wires to the back or sides for any additional speakers. When I pulled out the carpet it was original and glued to the floor so if they ran wires it would have been over top of the carpet . It still has the original dash speaker which works as well.
Its a heck of a good guess though as those sidepipes are loud.Comment
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Re: 66 radio side panel mystery
I recently worked on a '66 convertible, with sidepipes, that had rear speakers.......... which I removed along with the wiring.
Each speaker wire pair ran under the center console,
loosely laying on each side of the tunnel under the edge of the carpet,
behind the seats under the rear binding of the floor,
over the edge of the luggage stop carpet at the outer ends tucked behind the side end flap binding,
down the backside of the luggage stop tucked under the carpet flaps in the jack storage well,
up into the floor carpet edges on each side tucked just inside the binding,
and into each speaker on both sides which were mounted on a wide 8" high rectangular panel mounted horizontally to the decklid spring towers.
I think it took me about as long to remove the wiring as it was to explain it above.
RichComment
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Re: 66 radio side panel mystery
Ha. That seems like an obvious place to run wires. But wonder why the guy went to all the trouble to remove the wires rather than clip them at the back and just leave them. I guess you could probably just pull them through from underneath. As I say I think your guess is a good one.
I have considered installing a slightly better audio system at some point but doubt I'll use this knob! Looks like a new radio panel is in order. I dont think they are cheap.Comment
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Re: 66 radio side panel mystery
Dan, That panel is repairable as it's made of fiberglass. I'd strip the paint and then bevel the edges of the hole on both sides. Make a paste from finely chopped mat and mix into polyester resin. Place some wax paper on the front over the hole and then masking tape over that to the panel.
Fill in the hole from the backside with the paste until the front is filled. After the paste cures overnight remove the front paper and sand it and use a glazing putty to fill any micro holes. Sand again until flat then you can prime and paint it to match.
Here are a few pics of similar, yet smaller holes I've filled with good results. This was on a inner skirt. I used clamps to make it a "press molded" repair. After sanding and painting the repair was not visible. In this case though, I didn't actually have to fill that hole and one other as I found out later they "should be" there. I was told earlier that they shouldn't be there. I just had to drill them out again. I guess it was good practice as I had to do many others too.
RichComment
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Re: 66 radio side panel mystery
Geat advice thanks Rich.
Will be good practice for the vast amounts of body work I will have to do!Comment
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