Old school Pioneer head unit, should I or should I not???

[83Stepper]

Ok so rummaging through the stuff I've got downstairs I ended up finding a Pioneer head unit from the years before I met my wife as well as some of my old cassettes. Wasn't fully sure if it worked like it did at one time. So me being me, I hooked it up to a spare battery I had floating around and an old garbage speaker from a former vehicle and holy crap it worked! Forward and reverse on the tape deck, fast forward and rewind, FM tuner and all 4 bands, FM I/II/ III and AM. Only missing the antenna lead on the back of the unit, but that's an easy fix lol. So very tempted to just toss it into the 83 and get a bluetooth adapter for calls and streaming music.

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[CountKrunk]

Sounds like you already made up your mind, go for it! You could use an fm tuner to connect to it from a smart device

 

[Ricko1966]

Hook up 2 speakers before you make a decision. It may not work on both audio channels. Sometimes when you run them with no load,as in right speaker but no left speaker or vice versa,they burn up the output IC.

 

[83Stepper]

Hook up 2 speakers before you make a decision. It may not work on both audio channels. Sometimes when you run them with no load,as in right speaker but no left speaker or vice versa,they burn up the output IC.

Already tested all 4 channels, LF/LR RF/RR and they all work connected individually and tested with the fader and balance controls. Didn't have them all connected at once, just had the one speaker. All for speakers use a common ground, no RCA connectors and worse part of it all, no battery lead for memory, just a single hot lead that's always pulling juice for memory and power. One of the downfalls of some of these older units as that was kind of an afterthought.

 

[Shorty81]

I say no. You would have to cut the dash.

 

[83Stepper]

I say no. You would have to cut the dash.

Unfortunately dash was already cut by one of the previous owners. So I've got a full face unit there already that has bluetooth capability. Just not old school am/fm/cassette cool.

 

[Chris64]

The plus is: you have it and your dash is already cut! That's a good reason to use it. The negative: is it's just a pretty basic unit from an era where they had some awesome head units.

Finding one that's still working is a whole different story.

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[brooksman9]

One of my favorite old things was the “thump” sound through the speakers my KP-5500 would make when you turned it on.

 

[Beast496]

I remember late 90's, having a Kenwood casette player that had auto fast forward and reverse to advance to next track, or go back to the beginning of a song. It was also a complete pull out model, meaning you could lift a handle and completely remove it to bring it in the house, store, school, etc. It was in a 78 Trans-Am. If I still had that, it would be installed 100%. Do it.

 

[Scott91370]

I have to admit I regret cutting my dash. Not sure why but I do.

 

[projo198]

First of all: that cassette collection is DOPE!

Secondly, I just finished using one of these for a single din install and it works great, keeps things looking very clean.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AJ3885W/

 

[89Suburban]

Ok so rummaging through the stuff I've got downstairs I ended up finding a Pioneer head unit from the years before I met my wife as well as some of my old cassettes. Wasn't fully sure if it worked like it did at one time. So me being me, I hooked it up to a spare battery I had floating around and an old garbage speaker from a former vehicle and holy crap it worked! Forward and reverse on the tape deck, fast forward and rewind, FM tuner and all 4 bands, FM I/II/ III and AM. Only missing the antenna lead on the back of the unit, but that's an easy fix lol. So very tempted to just toss it into the 83 and get a bluetooth adapter for calls and streaming music.

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I had that same head unit one of mine too.