"Mods" to make aftermarket stereo look more correct in a mid-60s Buick

[elagache]

Dear mid-60s Buick owners with an ear for good audio,

Today there are many options for upgrading the audio in a classic car.  One of the first that came along was the reproduction stereos that fit into classic car radio bezels.  These remain a worthwhile option to consider because they are less expensive than the alternatives, provide excellent sound, and are convenient to control.  Hidden radios avoid disturbing the OEM radio, but must be located somewhere - which might already compromise originality.  Hidden radios also require a remote which is awkward to store and less convenient to use.  Modifying a factory radio avoid the extra paraphernalia of the hidden radio, but they are extremely clumsy to control and unless the factory speakers are upgraded, the sound quality is poor.

My trusty wagon has a Custom Autosound 630 stereo with the Bluetooth add-on.  I made some modifications to make the stereo look much more like the 1965 Buick radio.  Almost 5 years ago, I documented those modifications on the V-8 Buick forum, but wrote it up in a particularly clumsy way.  That write-up is further crippled by the change of forum software.  It seemed like a good time to redo this description and clean up the many mistakes first made.  Also the technology has changed in the past 5 years so an update was necessary.  Since these modifications were intended for a mid-60s Buick, this forum is a better venue for this topic anyway.

For starters here is the comparison photos.  Here is what the Custom Autosound stereo looked like "out of the box:"



The only catch is that I used the original 1965 Buick knobs instead of the Custom Autosound ones.  Here is my car's original AM radio put back into the same bezel and photographed under as close conditions as I could come up with:



Here is the Custom Autosound stereo after all my modifications:



Actually this isn't completely true.  There is one more "mod" that I did after this photo which will be covered later on.

Basically I made two modifications.  I modified the shafts of the Custom Autosound stereo to accept the Buick knobs.  I also created the covers for the radio buttons using transparency film.  In the succeeding two posts I'll explain how I did each one.

Cheers, Edouard 

[elagache]

Dear mid-60s Buick fans of "mods,"

Okay, here is the first set of "mods" to made a Custom Autosound 630 (or 230) look a lot more like a Buick factory radio.

However, first a warning:

DISCLAIMER:
Anyone attempting these modifications does so solely and completely at their own risk!! Even successfully completing these modifications might nonetheless void your warranty. If you fail, you will definitely end up with hundreds of dollars down the drain. This info is provided purely as a service to Buick lovers and is purely "as is." There are absolutely no guarantees of - anything! So if screw up - don't come crying to me! 

. . . . . . . .

So for the brave that remain, here is how I modified the control shafts.

Okay, here is a photo of the unmodified control shafts on the Custom Autosound-630:



At least for the 1965 Buicks, the radio has exactly the same types of shafts as the Custom Autosound, but the dimensions are slightly different and the inner shaft isn't forked and has a flattened section.

First I went to my car's old AM radio and got dimensions for the control shafts. If you want to try this on a car other than a 64-65, you'll probably need to repeat this procedure because this could have changed over over the years of production. I used a digital caliper to get reasonably precise numbers. With that I made the following comparison diagram:



At this point you need to decide what to modify. You could try to modify the original Buick knobs. However, my guess was that the Custom Autosound-630 control shafts would be softer steel and easier to fashion. It only took me about 1/2 hour to modify the shafts - so I think that is the path of least resistance.  I used some hobby/precision files to do the work.  I think this sort of thing can be found just about anywhere including better shop tools houses.

If you look at the diagram, the outer notched shafts need the notches to be widened by just 0.02" (0.01" on each side.) I just slowly went at the notch with a flat rectangular file. I tried to avoid scratching the inner shaft as much a possible. Also, I had an aerosol air duster handy to periodically blow away the metal filings from the stereo. It is best to alternate between one notch and the other so that you can periodically try to fit the Buick outer knob. Eventually, the knob slipped down into the notches. Repeat the same procedure for the other outer shaft.  As it turns out for the Custom Autosound 630, all this effort is purely decorative.  The outer knobs aren't used at all, unlike previous Custom Autosound models.  Nonetheless, if you don't go through this procedure, you cannot get the knobs to fit properly.

The inner shafts are a bit more tricky. The idea here is chose one of the two sides of the forked inner shaft and flatten it until the Buick inner knob slides on without twisting. If you don't file the shaft down enough, the fork will compress causing the knob to not sit straight. It will then wobble when turned. I also discovered that my inner shaft has been bent either in transport or in my handling of it. So I had to bent the shaft back until it true. Once I got the shaft straight and filed the inner shaft down enough, the inner knob would turn without wobbling. The passenger side inner shaft doesn't actually rotate, but is a control that you twist left and right. To avoid damaging that shaft while I was filing I stuck another file into the gap in the fork to steady it and prevent the filing from doing any damage. The same trick can be used on the other side to make the filing process easier.

Here is a photo of the shafts after modification:



So believe it or not, that is how I went about getting the original Buick knobs to fit on a Custom Autosound 630.

Cheers, Edouard 

P.S. If you look at the diagram, you should notice that the Custom Autosound-630 are thicker than even the rounded portion of the original Buick shafts. So "in theory" the inner shafts should require filing all around. However, the difference is only 0.01" radius, so I found that the forks will squeeze enough to allow these knobs to fit okay. Also, I'm not sure if the gap in the fork is weakened by the flattening of one side. It might be necessary to fit the gap to keep the shaft from bending from repeated use. Only time will tell on that one.

[elagache]

Dear mid-60 Buick fans of "mods,"

As promised, here is the second and probably final installment on modifying a Custom Autosound 630 radio to look more original in a mid-60s Buick.

As before, the disclaimer of the previous posting applies!

This is unlikely to wreck your radio, but if you do wreck it, don't come crying to me. 

This episode involves giving your radio those very period looking "BUICK" letters on your station selection buttons.  When I first did this, there were a number of reproduction stereos that could accept the letters.  However, today only the Custom Autosound 230 and 630 have 5 black buttons that are squared off.  Retrosound has gone with rounded chrome buttons.  Ken Harrison Stereos have only 4 buttons for operation, so that won't work either.  Even the Custom Autosound 740 has reverted to the Retrosound styled curved chrome buttons.  However, there is one other device that clearly could use these buttons, original Buick radios from the period.  So this technique could be used to repair a OEM radio with damaged buttons.  That might be the most popular use for this technique on this forum.

You'll need a file that contains a high resolution version of this image:



If you reasonably comfortable with printing, you can simply download the Acrobat (.PDF) file that I have attached to this posting and print it in various ways.  If that is too much of a hassle for you, send me a PM and I can arrange for you to send me a self-addressed and stamped envelope and I'll send you printout with the buick letters.

If you want to print this yourself, you will need to print this image onto a sheet of clear overhead transparency film. You could just buy a pack of the stuff and use your own printer, but it is expensive and a little tricky to use. So unless you have other uses for transparency film, I suggest you put the .PDF file from this posting on a thumbnail (USB) drive and take it a local copy shop like:

    FedEx Office
    The UPS Store
    etc.


If you tell them you want this file printed onto a sheet of overhead transparency film, they should be able to do this for a few bucks. The resolution of the image is limited to 600 dpi (that was the best I could get out of raw data.) That means just about any modern printer will be capable of printing a finer resolution than the image actually has. So don't pay for any fancy printing options - you'll just be wasting money.

Note that the template includes 1" scales that can be used to check that the printer is scaling the image correctly. Before paying for the clear film, ask them to print the file on a piece of paper and confirm that the scaling is correct. If not, you could have them adjust the print scaling until you are getting 1" for 1".

What you should get back will look something like this:



At this point the image may not look that promising. The "black" may appear to be more of a charcoal grey and obviously no white lettering. However, keep da' faith, this can still turn out beautiful.  At this point, apply a few coats of gloss-white paint to the back of the transparency. Here is my example after 4 coats:



This is the paint that will give your Buick letters that nice shiny appearance of a new car. As you can see though, the black doesn't look reasonable yet. Once the white paint is fully cured, take a straightedge and a sharp knife and carefully cut out the letters. Doing this before all the painting is complete may seem counter-intuitive, but some clear coat paints will chip when you try to cut the letters out of the plastic film. I discovered this da' hard way when I tried to cut out the letters after applying the clear top coat.

Once you have cut the letters, place them on some tape that will be easy to remove like masking tape or transparent tape as I did in the picture below. Now you can apply some clear paint to enhance the appearance of the black and more importantly protect the printed ink. Without this step, the printed ink will be rubbed off in a short period of time. In my first attempt to do this I used a semi-gloss clear covering:



Since then I've run a second test with high-gloss clear coating and I think that is a closer match to the shiny radio-buttons.

All that is left is to glue the letters on to the end of the buttons. I couldn't think of a really good glue for this job. These are dissimilar materials so the choice of glue is tricky. I ran a test using CA (super) glue and it does bond nicely and grabs all the way to the corners so that there is no give-away peeling film. However, it is tricky to use and can discolor the lettering. On my radio there is a light hazing on the letter "C" that I think is caused by the glue.

Here is the completed buttons viewed straight on:



Unfortunately, If you view the buttons from an angle, you can see the edges of the transparency film and that definitely detracts from the appearance. 



I got a suggestion from a friend to try using a "Sharpie" permanent marker pen. Here is the same buttons after blacking out the edges with the marker pen:



The permanent marker definitely blacks out that unwanted sheen from the transparency edges.

All told, addling the BUICK letters was the easiest of the modifications I made and it is the one change that really changes the appearance of the radio so it looks from the 1960s.  Unfortunately, I can see that this technique has limited applications at the moment, but it certainly should be useful to anyone trying to freshen up an OEM radio.

Cheers, Edouard 

P.S. The observant reader will notice that I omitted an important detail.  The original Custom Autosound 630 stereo had a panel with the word Buick printed in a 1950s style script.  Clearly on my radio this feature was repainted.  One can dismantle the radio to repaint this, but the path of least resistance is to ask for a "plain vanilla" part be inserted instead of the Buick one.  Since these radios are custom assembled for each other, you can let Custom Autosound solve this problem for you!