Sweet Custom Autosound Tunes Feb 27, 2007
Install is really a breeze. The radio fit perfectly in the stock location and looks period correct.
Old cars come with old radios which don't cut it in today's digital age. While most of our project cars make sweet sounds in the engine compartment after a while we find ourselves wanting for some stereorific jams.
Lucky for us we ran into the crew of Custom Autosounds at SEMA. They make a host of radios, speakers, panels, etc. that combine the look of yesterday with the electronics of today. The last thing we wanted to do was cut a hole in the dash or tack on some stupid looking box to our freshly restored interior. That and the thought of putting a new head unit in our classic Ranchero resto-mod brought forth visions of Tech Editor Per Schroeder in a Tutu. Yea, that ugly and that out of place.
Install is really a breeze. The radio fit perfectly in the stock location and looks period correct. We located power, ground and switched power. Switched power is a fancy term for power that is on only when the key is on. From a few feet out it is hard to tell it’s new. It even has an auxiliary. input for our MP3 player.
The first speaker we installed was a center channel. It’s basically two speakers in one. Most systems have four speakers for front and rear stereo but since our Ranchero only has room for one, and Custom Autosound came up with a solution. Two speakers in one. They divide the speaker so there are two channels. We ended up taking off the adapter braket for mounting it in the dash and mounting it with some two sided foam tape. The factory grill then locked it into place.
Two additional speakers are mounted in the kick panels making speaker install a snap, although the kick panels needed a little shaping to fit just right.
We ran the auxiliary input through the glove box. That way we can hook up our iPod or in this case our Sirius MP3 player to our new stereo. With the unit in the glove box no one knows we have new age tunes in our Ranchero.
This was well worth the three hours we spent in the garage a few Saturdays ago. We liked it so much we’re planning to do the same to our Corvair.
Our Ranchero is Now Finished Jul 11, 2007
We just got our last bit of sorting done. We installed a rubber mat on the cargo floor to add some practicality and we got the last bit of wiring sorted out. We lost our fuel gauge due to a bad wire to the sending unit.
We also had Pats Transmissions go through our AOD transmission. We never touched this swap meet find when building the truck and decided it was time for a rebuild. The transmission now shifts much better and we look forward to finally spending some time enjoying this vehicle.
We will not be making anymore regular updates, but will throw something up on the site if we make any major changes to the Ranchero.
Ranchero Gets Lettered Mar 23, 2008
Sure, vinyl lettering has revolutionized the motorsports industry, but for a classic vehicle, nothing looks more appropriate than real painted lettering.
When it came to getting our classic shop truck project vehicle properly lettered for our upcoming Mitty event, we weren't going to settle for vinyl. Sure, vinyl lettering has revolutionized the motorsports industry, but for a classic vehicle, nothing looks more appropriate than real painted lettering.
Fortunately, during this year’s Daytona Bike Week we ran into longtime racer, Classic Motorsports reader and vintage racer Russ Mowry. On weekends, as part of his Gray Beard Racing team, Russ can be found racing his 1959 Elva Courier with VSCCA and SVRA. During the week, however, Russ is a real, old-fashioned sign painter and owner of Graybeard Design: (603) 738-7313.
Based out of New Hampshire for most of the year and Florida when he needs a break from the cold winter, we can recommend Russ for lettering work. We were thrilled at how he duplicated our intricate logo and painted it on both sides of our 1963 Ranchero. Russ was also very reasonably priced and did the whole job in just a few hours.