My ol lady (old '80) F150 Ranger has had 3 owners so I don't know when it happened but it looks like maybe the radio was swapped out. -lots of twisted wires into a round pin connector that runs into a Sanyo cassette player with red digital read out. Maybe a dealer add on? Anyone know?

 

It's just an aftermarket radio that a PO swapped out at some point. Most likely the truck either just had an am or a am/fm radio. So they probably swapped it out with this one for the cassette player. If you look on the back side of the radio, there should be a label that has a production date. That should give you some sort of an idea of when it was swapped into the truck.

 

BINGO! Too bad really... I was trying to keep things factory.

 

WOW. And after looking at the prices people want for factory units I wish I'd kept mine from the '86. But those things were worth less than nothing 15 years ago. -times change...

 

Yep about 10 to 15 years ago I got mine from a radio repair shop for free. I gave them $5 for some beer as I didn't want to take it for free. Been working fine ever since, only thing is pushbuttons do not work and the cassette part does not work either the oring band is broken so only one spindle turns which makes the radio think the tape is done and auto eject.

 

Well, its not what I wanted, but its a period correct "custom" add on. I'll clean it up and see if it works. I'd ask Panasonic (owns Sanyo) to fix it if it doesn't but I'm afraid they'd laugh me off. 8 tracks were still around in 1980 right? (I'm pre-dating myself) Maybe I could find one of those.......

 

8tracks were still around we had a '84 model truck bought new in a few weeks back that had a original AM/FM 8track. My radio is a early '80s model from a car but its a cassette not 8 track.

 

I just did a quick search for 8 tracks on eBay and they're reasonably available. Does anyone know what model would have been in our trucks?

 

Probably not the "quad sound" pictured.

 

That's unfortunate, the ***** match my wiper/light ***** almost perfectly.

 

This is the factory radio in my 84. Same *****, etc.

 

I had a 1979 Thunderbird that had that same looking AM/FM Quadrasonic radio with the
8 track player. The one that came in my 1981 F100 did not have the Quadrasonic lid on
the 8 track player.

The 1981 radio and player worked fine, but I found a 1984 vintage radio with a cassette
player that I installed in the truck.

 

Darn.....I have a case full of 8-Track Tapes...
"You Get a line and I'll git a pole Honey!"
Andy Griffith anyone?.....oh never mind

 

Oh, Lord. Thus has taken fearsome turn. Lol. Tho I do have a red headed stranger track a picked up a couple years back. -be nice to check it out

 

It wasn't exactly cheap, but I scored this on eBay a while back. Everything supposedly works except the preset buttons. This is the factory 80-84 cassette player unit:



I tried for a long time to find one in the junkyard. Found a few 8 track units and radio only units but no cassette player units that were not totally trashed. I would keep an eye out on eBay, a factory unit might still be cheaper that paying someone to fix the aftermarket one.