'67 Radio/Speaker

[Ken Chambers]

Just had my '67 radio rebuilt. But now I find out it was not "upgraded" with all modern technology as I thought it would be. Instead it was "restored" to like new from the factory. Perfect for NCRS judging. That would not be so much of a problem, except the previous owner upgraded the Mono center speaker to a Stereo dual cone speaker. The rebuilder of the radio says THAT newer speaker will burn out my 'new' radio after a short amount of time, so I need to put an original type Mono speaker --WITH a Transformer on it-- back in the dash!

Rather than go through all it takes to replace that center speaker (I have original Factory Air)... I CAN have the radio upgraded to be compatible with that stereo center speaker but -- I'd be wasting the just completed work of making the radio like new again.

I'm wondering if I trade radios with someone who has a mid-year radio that doesn't work -- & they want originality but don't want to wait weeks to get it done -- then ship out their non-working radio for the "upgrade" service to put in my car, does that negatively impact the "numbers matching" aspect of both our cars? Mid-year AM-FM radios aren't specific to individual cars are they? I know the control knobs are different -- but other than that -- they could be interchanged without ruining a car's originality -- couldn't they??

I'd appreciate an e-mail if you know anything about mid-year radios/speaker compatiblity that could help. Thanks. Kc

[Joe C.]

Re: '67 Radio/Speaker

Ken:

The only significant specification for speakers is impedance. I believe that the original speaker was rated at 4 ohms. Today's most common speakers are rated at 8 ohms, and some are rated at 16 ohms. There is no such thing as a "stereo" speaker, or "monaural" speaker. The only difference that you will find between speakers of diffetent impedance, is input ( degree rotation of the "volume" knob) versus output (Db level of sound). If you use a speaker of lower impedance than the original, then there is a slight chance of overdriving the amplifier in your reciever by playing at excessively high volume levels. If you don't listen to "Deep Purple" with the volume cranked to the max, then you will be okay.
I can tell you that when I took my 1965 car apart for the restoration, I discovered an 8 ohm "quasi-modern" speaker. The radio worked fine at the time, even though the speaker had a ruptured cone. I replaced it with the original, horrible sounding original type with transformer.
Please verify what I have said with your rebuilder before playing your radio at anything more than 1/2 power.

Joe