Hi-way Hi-Fi

David

 

Yeah that old car record player is classic ! Don't think Im going to entertain it tho ..... Im looking forward to a little Mel Tillis on the 8 track....

 

Sent you a message, Jake.

David

 

The picture is kind of strange, is the lady some kind of mutant dwarf? Her forehead is practically level with the dash..

 

Just a post to be able to see Tedster's post. Lol

David

 

Naw, nothing strange. Back then people were smaller and cars were bigger .

 

This picture in the 1960 Imperial brochure always makes me laugh. Although the car is huge, they sat three of the tiniest people they could find to demonstrate the vast spaciousness of the backseat. Lol


(how's that for a hijack!)

David

 

Yeah, sorry. I suppose they would use minus-sized folks to give the illusion of a spacious interior

 

You can help an 8 track sound better by using good speakers, & installing an equally old school power booster - graphic equalizer. The power booster makes a big difference.

One tip: As soon as a tape starts to sound the smallest bit funky, yank it out! Weird sounds are usually an indication that something is going wrong. If you leave the tape in, you end up with yards of tape wound around all the moving parts inside the player, you may or may not be able to get them out. Better to pull the tape before that happens. Once you listen to 8 tracks for a while you'll know when trouble is coming.

 

Don't keep them in the truck, especially in direct sunlight, or, extreme cold.

"The warble of death". I'm sure somebody (still?) made a tape head cleaner cartridge. The trick with tape players is to keep the capstan and rollers free of dirt and goo. Long wooden Q-tips and denatured alcohol.

The tapes themselves will need new foam backing pads by now. Somebody probably has a webpage and forum on this, and undoubtedly YT videos. Then run the tapes through all the way on FF or whatever. For some reason people would stuff a matchbook under the tape to keep it from jamming.

 

There are lots of good you tube videos on how to freshen up old 8-track tapes.

David

 

With the price of 8 tracks, if my player eats one I just screw it to the wall of my shop as decoration. I was only mad when it ate my Waylon Jennings and Freddie Fender tapes. Thankfully eBay fixed me right back up. I probably only have 80 or so by now

 

You can get your Freddy Fender fix on that Lincoln Quad video I posted. He is on most of it.

David

 

Hi,

I am extremely flattered that my 77 F250 with Ford Quad 8 track inspired you. Our family had a 77 F150 Explorer in 78 and it was passed to my brother who drove it until 1986 with an after market 8 track.

I must admit that back in the day I would only deal with cassette tapes and had a Pioneer AM/FM cassette deck massaged into my 72 F100. When I restored my 69 Mach 1 CJ in the late 80s, I discovered from the Lois Eminger invoice (now the Marti report) that my car had an AM/8 track. I found an original unit and had it restored and about the same time, radio shack was closing out all their blank 8 track stock. I bought it up at just about every store in the SoCal area for pennies on the dollar and still have over half of the stock to still use. I record tapes on a Pioneer deck but I have literally over a thousand bought at the music store tapes. I am thinning out that collection big time, as there is just too much to store that I will never listen to.

Anyhow, some tapes sound really great while others are not very good. The quality was all over the map. I keep late 70s and early 80s music store/record club pre-recorded tapes in a tape case in the truck, about 20 of em. About 4 are quad tapes, which sound amazing. I use a 76-79 era Ford AM/FM quad deck. Minor alterations are required to the dash bezel to clear everything but not difficult to do with a dremel tool. I have it connected to Pioneer two way speakers in the doors in the original location and door panels fit with no issues. Behind the seat, I added two 6x9 3-way pioneer speakers mounted in wood enclosures and a thinwall Pioneer 10" subwoofer, mono connected to a subwoofer amp. It all sounds really good, though not as great as if I could have the rear speakers unblocked like in a package shelf of a passenger car. Still though, since I had a 79 F100 new while a HS senior and we had the 77 for almost 10 years, my truck is like a DeLorean time machine. I get in, and it is 1979 for me all over again. Oh, and no one will ever steal your radio.

I have videos of it playing and can send photos of it all if you want to see. PM for that stuff.

Mike

 

I've never heard the actual quadraphonic. I still have an old Panasonic Quadraphonic home 8-track player and two quad tapes (Best of the Guess Who, and The Best of the Doors) but no four channel amp - at least not one with four RCA inputs.

You can identify a quadraphonic tape by the slot cut out on the top, at the exposed-tape end, on the left(?) side. A conventional 8-track has four tracks/programs which use two channels, and the quads have two tracks of four channels, and thus require twice the length of tape. I doubt that they cut down to half speed.

If you had a good player and decently recorded tapes, 8-tracks could sound pretty damned good, but you would still hear other tracks/programs between songs on the track you are on...

I have the factory AM/FM cassette w/clock from a '96 Probe hanging under the dash in my dent!