Does the radio have an inline fuse?

Ped

Club Member
My original Clarion radio in my 1979/1980 280zx stopped working after I caught the electric aerial on my garage door, and am just getting round to looking at it after about a year! The aerial still goes up and down fine, but must have fried something to do with the radio or the power supply.

I have checked the fuse in the fuse box and it is fine. Before I set about taking it out of the lower dash, I was wondering if there is an inline fuse, like on modern car stereos on the back of the old radio unit? Is this just wishful thinking, or does it have an internal fuse?

Would like to keep it original, but will look at getting better speakers. As it was only the centre dash speaker that was working anyway.

Any suggestion please? :confused:
 

Ped

Club Member
radio.jpg


OK, so there is a 2 amp fuse on the back of the radio (see pic above). I tested it and fortunately it was intact. So it looks like the speaker in the centre of the dash is blown. I had a look to see if the back speakers could be swapped out easily (as these never worked) to test whether the radio was dead, but it looks like the rear speakers were never fitted, maybe because it is a basic model?

How difficult is it to swap the front speaker? Does it mean taking the dash off?
 

Mr.F

Inactive
I'm pretty sure that the dash centre speaker is only accessed when the dash is out of the car, but you might try removing the supplementary instruments (through the glove box to see if that gives access...
 

Mrs HollowPoint

Well-Known Forum User
You have a radio at all? oooh youre lucky.
I have my next task of fitting the Kenwood singing dancing stereo in my 280 next and dont want to set the car on fire so I'll be interested in what's going on with this too.
 

Ped

Club Member
I'm pretty sure that the dash centre speaker is only accessed when the dash is out of the car, but you might try removing the supplementary instruments (through the glove box to see if that gives access...

Thanks Mike, I think I will try and see if I can spot the speaker through the clove box route first.
 

Ped

Club Member
IMG_6344.jpg


This is where the rear speakers should have been (older pic), note the Green/Blue and Green/Black wires and connector. This tallies with the wiring diagram I have, but...

radio.jpg

I cant see where these Green/Blue and Green/Black wires are that go into the radio. The actual wiring does not seem to tally with the wiring diagrams I have.

Think I will just plug a speaker in and see if the radio is alive or not...
 

andrew muir

Club Member
I would be very surprised if the speaker was blown!!
I would suspect it is the output stage on the radio.
You can test the loudspeaker just connect any amp and source to the speaker wires that went into the back of the radio.
Or failing that just use a battery and connect up you should get a click from the speaker when you connect and disconnect etc. Don't keep it connected too long and only use a normal 1.5v battery.
 
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