Yes you can get nice errors with that "help". I had a hell of a job to get this locked off in my email program. After typing the mail you are astonished wat the stupid thing wrote and you can go correcting it all over again...

I made a little bit of progress today on the stereo installation. I've installed a dozen of stereos in cars but installing a complete stereo in a car that never came with one is a bit of a challenge.

I sawed the lip off the rear of the radio pod to give me a bit more room so I could mount it as far back to the bulkhead as possible.



I wanted to notch out the pod around the support bar and mount the pod directly to the underside of the tray, but once the radio was installed into the pod, it was almost flush with the lips so there was no point in hacking.

So I drilled up through the support bar for the front and stacked a bunch of flat washers together as a spacer to fit between the pod and tray for the rear mounts and wrapped them with some electrical tape to hold them in place. Also so it didn't look like I stacked a bunch of flat washers to make a spacer!



The remaining ends of the machine screws will be sawed off flush with the nuts. Underneath the nuts will go some of of those plastic nut covers that flip over and snap. If that makes any sense...



Eventually the passenger side will be replaced with same felt material I used on the driver's side. I would like to save the upper bulkhead insulation but it's a bit curled and distorted. I can't tell that it does much good anyway. The section on the driver's side does not feel that warm. Any comments on that?



Aerial. Even though the cable can be disconnected from the aerial, I wanted to mount it on the removable panel between the front wing and bonnet so it would point along side the windscreen frame but decided against it. Mainly because I was afraid I might drill the holes wrong and it not line up correctly.



It's pointed at an angle a wee bit but not too bad. Maybe a slight bit of bending of the mast may work. At least from looking at the side of the car, I got it pointed straight up.



I chose this location so it would not conflict with the speaker. The speaker will go above the where the cable enters the cabin.



Next step, run the wiring and build the speaker boxes to go in the kick panels. At least for the fronts anyway for now. I'll go ahead and run the wiring for the rears for the future.

That's it for now.

Well it's been slow going on the radio installation. you would think I was rewiring a house!

One thing that took me awhile was to remove the bulkhead insulation that was drooping and cover the bulkhead and dash tray with the same type felt material used on the walls of the car. I also installed a new fuse box with new connectors and the electrics seem to be working better (forgot to take photos).

So I got my radio installed. Not the most expensive unit but sounds OK. One issue is every time I start the engine, I loose my presets. I had this same issue on my 68 Ford. I fixed that problem by using an old school radio (which sounds like crap).

I think the starter motor on both cars is causing a voltage drop. I'm not sure how to fix this other than placing a small rechargeable 12 volt battery between the ignition switch and radio and a diode. I also mounted a power point to recharge my cell phone.

Right now I have the speakers just propped up for now.





I've been working on my speaker boxes for the kick panels. I'm not really sure I will like them once they are complete. I made them out of cardboard and soaked them with fiberglass resin. I'm going to fill in the corners with body filler, sand and paint them black.

Why so thick? Well I had to take into account the depth of the magnet on the speaker and I chose to mount my antenna where everyone said it's supposed to go so I had to accommodate the bend for the cable. I did not think of it at the time but this appears to be the same connector used on a CB radio. Maybe I should have looked for a 90 degree adapter?



Sandwiched between two pieces of wax paper and using some jackstands and old speakers as weights to keep the edges flat which will be covered with 2 sided tape to hold them to the kick panels.





I ordered these 5" surface mount marine speakers for my Trabant.



I like having the speakers where they are placed and if I can somehow manage to squeeze the driver's side speaker into the corner, I may use these instead and mount them to the bulkhead. Maybe I can remove the instrument cluster and get it in there.

the battery is behind the instrument cluster...

Not sure if I follow you. Are you talking about the main battery inside the engine compartment (behind the instrument cluster) or some other unknown battery actually behind the instrument cluster when removed?

I did discover that the last five or six times I started the engine, I did not loose the presets. I think the battery is getting weak. I plugged one of those digital voltmeters in the power point socket I installed and it said the initial reading was 12 volts. Yet the engine did not struggle to turn over.

A good strong battery will show 12.6 volts. But I suspect because this is a 600cc engine, it doesn't require allot of cold cranking amps to turn the engine over. If the battery on my 2 liter Fiat Spider measures anything below 12.6 volts, it struggles to turn over.

I gave up on my home made speaker boxes. I didn't like them. My wife bought me these surface mount speaker boxes for my Trabant but they are too wide to fit so I'm going to use them in my 2CV.



I have not decided whether to cover the metal with that same felt material I used on the dash tray or paint the panels black.

I'm going to have to use two sided 3M tape to hold these speaker boxes to the metal since running screws through the kick panels will exit the wings!

yes the main battery sticks a part into the dash cluster. So not much space left there. I have blaupunkt speakers in the doors. If i had to do it again than i wouldn't because it is a shame to cut in the doorcards. But the sound is ok with 4 speakers in front and rear doors.

I put my speakers up on the B pillar bar years ago. Sounds great. I have a bass tube in the boot too.

Ignore the other mess, it's a work in progress...

Is the ceiling insulation a factory item or do you come up with this to help insulated the car during the winter?

After I added air condition to my Fiat Spider, the AC blew out cold air 45F/7C but the inside of the car did not feel that cool.





That's 33C to you folks outside the United States! Hey wait a minute, June 6th is my wife's birthday. Why was I out in the garage?



I aimed one of those heat pens at the roof on a sunny day and it was 88F/31C and the inside of the roof measured 140F/60C!!!

This car was not meant to have A/C. There are too many leaks around the convertible top, other heat sources. I insulated around the driveshaft tunnel. Otherwise I could fry an egg on it in the summertime.

Since the top was about knackered, I decided to install some insulation using that bubble insulation stuff and covered it with some black fabric. Securing it was the tricky part. I had to silicone the velcro to the top and the other velcro to the insulation pads.

http://www.ecas2cvparts.co.uk/thermal-h ... -1533.html

It's an aftermarket thing, quite good though.

Well finally! My stereo installation is complete. I have not installed rear speakers (as of yet anyway) but at least I got music.

These speaker boxes held some really old 4" 1970s Clarion speakers. I had rotate the newer 5.5" speakers 45 degrees and use the grills that went with the new speakers. I really wanted to use the original grills but there was no way around it.

I wanted to mount the speaker boxes the other way but where the antenna enters the cabin needs about 2 to 3" of clearance to make the bend.



This took quite a bit of engineering. I ended up removing some of the felt material and used 2 layers of 2 sided Scotch sticky tape. If this doesn't hold, then I'll use RTV.





The insulation around the edges on the bulkhead was curling and falling off and the vinly covering on the dash tray was groaty looking.



I installed some of those bolt head covers to cover the nuts for a better look. I need to do the same for the nuts holding the fusebox to the bulkhead.