8 track
 

So....I was bored with looking at the mess in my garage tonight so decided to come downstairs and get some of my "save for the car build" piles cleaned up. Tripped over my 8 track player and decided it was time to see if I could get it working. (I'm always side tracking myself so everything's half done and a huge mess) So anyways, I bought it over 20 years ago off a swap meet table with that "untested" story that basically goes with broken items. Took it apart, changed the belts I'd bought for it 10 years ago, found a 10 ohm speaker, wired and powered everything up, popped in a mystery tape (label fell off centuries ago) and heard the crackle and then croonings of Simon and Garfunkel! I hit the program switch and heard the clunk of the track change and into another song. I'm cheering like I just won the superbowl and my wife upstairs is yelling down at me about what that god awful noise is! After that success I decided to try the back up unit I'd bought for parts. It's missing everything except the unit itself. Switched the new belts to that one, powered it up and Simon sings again! Too bad it's missing everything but at least I have a back up if the good one cooks off.

So....I don't have an original drilled console plate to know where to locate this on the console. Anyone have an original they can measure up for the 4 holes I need to drill through the front console bezel plate? I still need to fab up a bracket that goes below the console to stiffen it up, but I need to know where to mount it first.

GREAT STUFF! I still have a bunch of 8-Tracks but no more player..but still have a few Reel to Reels :-)....Never was a big fan of them as the sound quality (as your wife well put it)...is NOISE LOL!:argue:

John H (North) has a few originally placed so I'm sure he'll be able to help you out...They don't show it in the assembly manual (I don't have one so can't check)?

Can't help with your question because mines a 68, but wanted to comment on what a great conversation piece it is:
I use the 8-Track in my 68 pretty regularly. It is original to the car, and I have a bunch of old 8-tracks I got off EBay more than a dozen years ago.
I even have an extra unit I picked up for parts a few years back, but hope I'll never need it.

Robert: Cmon....no better way to cruise in a goat than to hear the whining of Dean Martin to put you back in the day with these cars! (I'm listening to Dean now as I type! -- My tape just broke on my Styx Pieces of Eight....damn splice let go. Guess I'll be buying some of those rebuild kits I'm finding on ebay. I remember my grandfather lived on this Dean Martin tape when he drove me around in the 71 when I was a few years old in the early 70's. I remember making him nuts when I used to pick at the rubber roof rail seal that was starting to split.

JVM - yeah, I talk about this deck when I start talking about all the factory options I've added to the car. When I tell them I've got a factory 8 track I haven't installed yet, that's always more impressive to them than the other options.

I guess I've answered my own question on the placement. Looking at the console mounting plate that the parts place offers on ebay, it's obvious that it gets centered over the front bezel studs based on the holes cut into their repop plate. I know it'd be way easier to just buy that plate but I can't bring myself to spend $47 on a hidden piece of sheet metal that I could make myself. It wouldn't be that pretty, but it'd be functional.

wow, this music is painful, how'd Gramps love it so much? I can't take it anymore...maybe I'll try this "Best of Eddie Arnold" tape next!!

Here ya go.

No better sound then a good 8 track.

For sure Dennis...Dean Martin was a classic.!......8-Track to me was never high end sound...but was still cool because of the Track switching (Noisy but fun) :-)...My uncle had on his '67 Parisienne 2+2 Conv (Cdn Bonneville/Cat combo equivalent) the 45 RPM under dash record player...Now THAT was cool...I was 3 and loved it...Wonder what/how they made that thing work without skipping while driving ...:-)

Is there a vender out there that sells 8-track tapes that any of you recommend? I have never used the the player in my GTO and I want to buy a known good 8-track tape to test it out.

gto4evr, my 8=track looks different than yours... is it correct?

http://i931.photobucket.com/albums/a...ps37c4d995.jpg

Pat,
Yours is the right ine for your 68. The 69's are different than our 68's.
As cR as buying 8 tracks goes: it's kind of hit and miss. I have a couple of hundred of them that I bought in bunches on Ebay years ago. Just becaise they work now, doesn't mean they'll work the next time you put them in a player.
I had the 8 Track player from my car gome through by a local guy back in about 97 or 98 shortly after I first got the car. He was an expert that has long since passed away.
But he gave me the best piece of advice Nd thT was don't test tapes in the car. Pick up a cheap household player that works and test them in there before they get near the car.

Pat, yep, yours is a 68. My 69 is a bit different, they used the 69 style through 72.

JV- all the household ones are long gone but that's still great advice. I remember actually having an 8 track recorder at our old house!

Brian - thanks, even better having real dimensions! My wife says I'm wasting my time trying to make the bracket and to roll over some of my ebay sales money and just buy the repop bracket. I guess so, but it goes against my nature to take the easy way out!

Robert - could ANYTHING in 69 be considered "high end" sound? Hell, their idea of "stereo" was a front to back arrangement!

You could sell your non-console pedestal mount and recoup some coins.

My last All-in-One home stereo from early teenage days would record 8-tracks direct from albums. That was like GOLD when i got my first car.
And i used to record them for friends too , in exchange for herbs.

Still have the system stored here somewhere.
But don't know how tuff it will be to find new blank 8-tracks these days.
Used to buy them at Zayres Dept Store.

Lots of folks sell vintage 8-track tapes on eBay.
Many do test them first , and you pay more for them usually of course.

In the mid 90's i replinished 8-track inventory at local salvation army and goodwill stores. Have about 30 or so classic rock tapes ... that worked ... back then .

8 tracks
 

If you are thinking of buying 8 track cassettes on ebay make sure that you find out ALL the titles , as i purchased about 40 from one seller that had only listed about 6 rock titles , i assumed the rest would be the same sort of music , but they were some crap in German . i was not happy ,,, BEWARE

cheers kel.

if you need to locate the bracket under the console, its easy..the front of the bracket uses the same mounting point of the console..its sanwitched between the console and the floor bracket..you run a screw in the front tab, then pop a hole on both sides, and it mounted to the floor

mount the bracket in the console turn it upside down, mark it and pop holes...easy peasy..

they have been repopped, are diff than the pedistal and are really nice..cheap too

Baron, I seem to remember overtaping some tapes my parents didn't listen to anymore experimenting with the recorder. It was just something to play with since I came from the cassette era. Started driving in 84!

kel, funny! where'd they even get German cassettes? -- hell, that'd be worth one or two just to laugh at it. Crank it up while pulling into the car show!

I'm not too concerned about getting new ones. I'd cherry pick specifics maybe. I've got about 50 of them between my parents and grand parents stashes from the 70's. I kept them through house moves just because I always knew I'd get a factory player going someday. Somewhere in my basement is the aftermarket 8 track player my dad put into Gramma's 71 Lemans. That got pulled the second I got the car as my first ride when I promptly got the jig saw out, cut that AM radio out of the dash and installed my Pioneer Super Tuner cassette player. Oh, if I could only grab my younger self by the neck and slam some sense into him now!

I'm waffling now about which car to put this in, my 71 automatic or my 69 4spd. I'd really rather put it into my 69 vert, but, I can justify drilling holes into the automatic on the 71 since I can cover them up with a new woodgrain face if I decide to take it back out. I CAN'T justify drilling holes into that 4spd console. One other option would be to just pull the console out and use the floor mount bracket I already have on the player. I'm not sure I like the idea of no console, those console-less 4spd cars always look unfinished to me. It feels weird having buckets with nothing in the middle. My wife's 67 was like that until I put the floor shifter into her car. Still can't decide. My 71's the option pig that I've added the laundry list of factory options to, but that car's looking like a pile of crap now and it's the vert that goes to the shows......

Years ago I was able to pick up a couple of home 8 track players on EBay for pretty cheap prices. Not sure if you can still find them there regularly.
But I generally stop when I see a sign for a garage or tag sale if I have an extra few minutes. Every once in a while I come across an old household 8 Track player at them.
My experience has been that the tapes are what sometimes ruins them. Or at the very least they cause you to have to take the player apart when the tape itself comes unraveled or breaks.
Much better to have a 45 year old tape mess up a cheap household player than the harder to come by factory unit in your 60's car.

35 years ago I installed my factory eight track to the console without
the bracket underneath and have never had an issue with not having the bracket. One
thing though......the factory uses the bracket to ground the case of the eight track unit,
so without the bracket you have to run an auxiliary ground wire from the floor pan to the
metal case of the eight track unit or it won't play.

I picked up a bunch of 8 track tapes at a homeless shelter thrift shop. Mostly they all worked. I remember however that even back when they were still popular and lots of people had them the ribbon used to fail in one way or another. They were not dependable.

8-track tapes were dreadful after they got a couple/few years of regular use.
But it was the necessary evil of the time.
They had a small convenience about them - miniature table top for rolling joints while in a car. Not that i ever did that ;) - but saw it done a couple times or so. :o

Certain tapes needed a folded matchbook wedged in top right corner , some needed it wedged in bottom center , etc...
After a while you became a master tuner with a folded matchbook.

The worst part was how some songs split in the track-to-track shift , then continued after the kadink. About a 3-5 second transition of no sound other than the kadink.

Roadkill tapes used to be common sights with streams of ribbon all over the place.

Yeah, I remember picking up a roadkill 8track tape, and trying to play the tape on a reel to reel player we had. Nothing like listening to 4 songs at once.....:confused:

My 8-track player is in the radio itself on my 73GTO & when I took my car out west with me when I lived out in Wyoming going across the country without the 8-track I would have had no music at all. I usually find all of my tapes at the swap meets & at goodwill mostly. Goodwill is about the very best place to get the tapes as they always seem to turn up there. The only thing I've ever had to do to my 8-track is replace the belt.

My car was fitted with the 8 track at the factory and when I bought the car it was in the trunk along with the power window set up and a/c compressor. I had it rebuilt right away and have enjoyed it ever since. At the shows it is quite the attention getter.