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| Project "Grille Radio" - part #1 |
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1
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I had an idea the other day. I was in the garage and the reception from my 10+
year-old stereo was not working too well, so I started rummaging through my stuff and I found this old(new)
stereo that I had bought but never installed in one of the old projects. I figured that a stereo for a car with
a good antenna would get me the reception that I was looking for... or at least I hoped.
I had an old AC/DC converter, so I hooked up the stereo to see if it still worked, much to my delight, it did.
The stereo/speakers were all wrapped up in a box, so I figured it would work, but you never know. With all the
dirt, dust, and moving that I have done in the past few months, I didn't know what would work and what wouldn't.
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Also, a while ago I bought a grille off eBay that "needed some work". Good thing
I only spent 10 bucks for it as it was mangled. The pictures didn't really do it justice, but it looks like
it was involved in a roll over. Not good enough for a Jeep project, but also I didn't want to junk it, I wondered
if I could marry my need for tunes with a desire for wall art. What happened next was a nice marriage of the two.
I cut some cardboard templates into the headlight buckets, as this is where I planned on putting the 6.5"
speakers that came with the Sony XPlode kit. I figured that I would cut a hole in the grille shell as well to
mount the stereo. I will just tack this in with the welder.
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After the stereo cutout was in the shell, I was able to slide the stereo on. It
works well, but here is where I saw the first problem. It would have been good to cut and make a rectangular
mount itself that would go into the grille shell, and then the sleeve for the stereo itself could slide into that.
Also, it should be mounted about 1-2" out from the grill shell. What I found is that when I went to put it on the
wall, the back of the stereo with the wiring harness was too far back, thus hitting the wall. This isn't a huge
deal, but if I do more in the future, I will change where the stereo gets mounted.
Finally, I cut out some metal for the "eyeballs", mounted the speakers into the
grille shell and then wired up the stereo to the AC/DC converter, hooked up the speakers and fired it up. I was
very happy with the sound. It could use some speaker buckets behind the speakers to produce better lows, but all
in all, the reception is good, I have the ability to put a CD in, I can hook up my iPod now and finally, it is
on the wall and looks pretty good. I could use some paint and to a few other things, but what are you going to
do, I figure that if there is enough interest, I will start building them for people... patent pending. LOL.
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The total cost for this is hard to estimate, but I figure it was a $100 for the stereo stuff, $25 or so for the
grille shell with shipping, the AC/DC converter I had, but they go for like $50 at radio shack. BTW, you need a
good one here for as you turn up the juice on the stereo and add more load, it draws more voltage. I had another
AC/DC converter and it wouldn't allow the CD player to be played at high volumes, the other AC/DC converter works
much better. Just remember that when you are thinking about buying the $20 converter.
So, all in all, I figure it was about $200 for this. I bought an antenna and a switch that went in there. It isn't
fully functional in terms of wiring yet as I need to do a bit more to clean it all up... and I want to add the
marker lights or perhaps some 4" speakers, but you get the idea. Functionality and form... Jeep style.
cb (04/07/07)
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