WANTED Radio 87 Gran Fury

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metallicaman0258

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Im looking for a radio for my 87 Gran Fury. Would like a working Infinity II or Infinity III or a cassette deck with the joystick control for the speakers or the Infinity Gold CD player.

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Infintiy II

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Infinity III

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Infinity Gold (Infinity IV)
 

marty mopar

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from the 87 book:

4311 001 1 Am (Bright Face)
4311 002 1 Am (Black Face)
4311 102 1 Ultimate Sound (Bright Face)
4311 955 1 Am/Fm/Mx (Bright Face)
4311 956 1 Am/Fm/Mx (Black Face)
4372 443 1 Am/Fm/Mx w/Cassette (Bright Face)
4372 442 1 Am/Fm/Mx w/Cassette (Black Face)
4222 560 1 DIFFUSER,Illuminated Bulb
4293 916 1 STRAP, Noise Supp. Ground
5211 211 2 16" Lgth., Eng. to Cowl, Police Pkg.
4222 912 1 CAPACITOR, Radio Noise Supp., Blower Motor
KNOB, Radio
 

Cordoba1

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There are a couple of sellers on eBay who have modified several styles of Chrysler radios with a line-level input. You can use the input to connect an MP3 player, a telephone -- or add satellite radio like I did. I highly recommend the investment. You also get a known, good working radio, to boot. While you're in there messing with the wiring, do yourself a favor and remove some 6 X 9s from virtually any late model car and install in your rear package shelf. They'll sound great! I used Infinity-branded speakers from a LHS for my upgrade.
 

metallicaman0258

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There are a couple of sellers on eBay who have modified several styles of Chrysler radios with a line-level input. You can use the input to connect an MP3 player, a telephone -- or add satellite radio like I did. I highly recommend the investment. You also get a known, good working radio, to boot. While you're in there messing with the wiring, do yourself a favor and remove some 6 X 9s from virtually any late model car and install in your rear package shelf. They'll sound great! I used Infinity-branded speakers from a LHS for my upgrade.

Thanks bud. I've got a set of really nice aftermarket 6x9s and plan on using those as the paper cones and suspension of the factory speaker are a bit tired to say the least
 

NoCar340

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Dodge trucks through at least 2001 ('02 on the 8-luggers) use the same mounting pattern and pinout on the back of the stereo. Why decide between cassette and CD? :D

s-l1600.jpg



Having had dozens of Mopar stereos in my hands and apart over the years, most of the cassette and CD players were either made by Alpine or Fujitsu Ten, the latter being familiar to car audio buffs of 20+ years ago as Eclipse--premium stuff during that era. The only thing special about the Infinity head units are the fact that they have "Infinity" written on the display; otherwise they are 100% identical to non-Infinity units. Know your application; some of the early units used 16Ω speakers from the factory. Those units do not live happily with common 4Ω aftermarket speakers at high volumes.

The most-common failure on any of these units is the display. The VFD burns out, leaving only three very faint red lines horizontally across it. Next is burned control bulbs, which aren't terrible to fix but can be hard to source, and then the tape transport mechanism. People never take care of cassette decks.

Cordoba1 raises a very good point about the sellers that have added the auxiliary input. Chances are they've started with a known-good unit, and I would bet any internal service and especially a good cleaning are probably done when the addition is made. Internal dust and dirt are reponsible for most mechanical failures, and that point a simple cleaning won't fix what's failed.
 

metallicaman0258

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It was my understanding the factory Infinity decks were better at producing sound than the stock units. Was it just in the speakers and amps? and I know about the wiring compatability. I have the later individual ground wiring in mine not the common ground system from earlier M's. The big thing I want is the same mounts and a cassette deck (or combo) with the joystick fader. Its more period. Thanks guys.
 

NoCar340

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The radio mounting pattern for the FMJ cars started in 1972 with the trucks and vans, and in cars in '75 with the B-bodies and continued through at least 2002 in the Ram 2500/3500. Exceptions include the Diamond-Star cars [Sebring/Avenger/Stratus coupes (not convertibles), Laser/Talon (but not Lazer), etc.], PT Cruiser, later ('99-up?) minivans and I believe 2nd-generation Neons. All of the early minivans, all the JA/K/Q/H/G/P/Y, FWD A/B/C/E/J bodies, L-bodies (Omnirizon, Charger, Turismo), '93-'98 LH, all D/W/T300 trucks and all B-vans used the same mounting pattern. There's no shortage of 'em out there, nor is there any shortage of places to put one if you've got one lying around. To my knowledge, the non-common-ground wiring debuted in '84 using the familiar mirror-image black and grey plugs that I believe finally died with the '03 B-van.

Besides having dozens of Chrysler products over the years, I was a professional installer for a few years in the '90s, and again a decade later. Customers usually abandoned non-working factory decks, which I hoarded, dissected, and often played Dr. Frankenstein (it's Fronkensteen!) to make some of them work again.

Other than a terminal used to activate the external amps (it accepts a single female spade terminal), I've not found any internal differences in any radios marked "Infinity" as opposed to their identical-looking non-Infinity counterparts, assuming the same company manufactured both (Alpine or Fujitsu Ten/Eclipse). The differences were external and primarily in the speakers; Infinity systems used external amplification (sometimes at the speaker mounting location) which received and amplified a speaker-level output from the head unit. Replacing the speaker/amp assembly with a good-quality 4Ω aftermarket speaker and bypassing the amp resulted in no drastic change in performance. Trying to use the factory speaker-mounted amp with an aftermarket 4Ω driver would smoke the amp for the 16Ω speakers pretty quickly if driven hard, though.

Confused yet? Good. Because there are factory systems that did not carry the Infinity label, yet have the external amplifier. Hence the reason all the premium stereos, labeled or not, are essentially the same. Many radios even have the single spade connector seen on the Infinity/amplified systems, but it is unused in that application (my friend's '99 Ram is like this). However, for the next bit, I'll generically use "Infinity" to mean any externally-amplified system, and "non-Infinity" to mean a radio that connected directly to the speakers.

To use a non-Infinity factory deck (missing the amp output terminal), or an aftermarket head unit in place of a dead Infinity unit, simply ground the female spade terminal coming from the amp. The amp will still only power when there is signal present in the speaker wiring. If putting an Infinity unit where a non-Infinity stereo once sat, just plug in the main black/grey connectors, sit back, and be underwhelmed by the absolute lack of change in the sound. :D That is not the case, though, if you're upgrading from the basic line of cassette deck or AM/FM radio to an Infinity-style unit. In those cases, it will be quite an improvement assuming you're not using the 25-year-old factory speakers.
 

metallicaman0258

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The radio mounting pattern for the FMJ cars started in 1972 with the trucks and vans, and in cars in '75 with the B-bodies and continued through at least 2002 in the Ram 2500/3500. Exceptions include the Diamond-Star cars [Sebring/Avenger/Stratus coupes (not convertibles), Laser/Talon (but not Lazer), etc.], PT Cruiser, later ('99-up?) minivans and I believe 2nd-generation Neons. All of the early minivans, all the JA/K/Q/H/G/P/Y, FWD A/B/C/E/J bodies, L-bodies (Omnirizon, Charger, Turismo), '93-'98 LH, all D/W/T300 trucks and all B-vans used the same mounting pattern. There's no shortage of 'em out there, nor is there any shortage of places to put one if you've got one lying around. To my knowledge, the non-common-ground wiring debuted in '84 using the familiar mirror-image black and grey plugs that I believe finally died with the '03 B-van.

Besides having dozens of Chrysler products over the years, I was a professional installer for a few years in the '90s, and again a decade later. Customers usually abandoned non-working factory decks, which I hoarded, dissected, and often played Dr. Frankenstein (it's Fronkensteen!) to make some of them work again.

Other than a terminal used to activate the external amps (it accepts a single female spade terminal), I've not found any internal differences in any radios marked "Infinity" as opposed to their identical-looking non-Infinity counterparts, assuming the same company manufactured both (Alpine or Fujitsu Ten/Eclipse). The differences were external and primarily in the speakers; Infinity systems used external amplification (sometimes at the speaker mounting location) which received and amplified a speaker-level output from the head unit. Replacing the speaker/amp assembly with a good-quality 4Ω aftermarket speaker and bypassing the amp resulted in no drastic change in performance. Trying to use the factory speaker-mounted amp with an aftermarket 4Ω driver would smoke the amp for the 16Ω speakers pretty quickly if driven hard, though.

Confused yet? Good. Because there are factory systems that did not carry the Infinity label, yet have the external amplifier. Hence the reason all the premium stereos, labeled or not, are essentially the same. Many radios even have the single spade connector seen on the Infinity/amplified systems, but it is unused in that application (my friend's '99 Ram is like this). However, for the next bit, I'll generically use "Infinity" to mean any externally-amplified system, and "non-Infinity" to mean a radio that connected directly to the speakers.

To use a non-Infinity factory deck (missing the amp output terminal), or an aftermarket head unit in place of a dead Infinity unit, simply ground the female spade terminal coming from the amp. The amp will still only power when there is signal present in the speaker wiring. If putting an Infinity unit where a non-Infinity stereo once sat, just plug in the main black/grey connectors, sit back, and be underwhelmed by the absolute lack of change in the sound. :D That is not the case, though, if you're upgrading from the basic line of cassette deck or AM/FM radio to an Infinity-style unit. In those cases, it will be quite an improvement assuming you're not using the 25-year-old factory speakers.
Wow. You sound like the guy that did the allpar.com articles on factory radios. I actually had a friend donate a factory basic am/fm only from an early 90s fwd. It's a Huntsville radio.

Do you have any alpine/eclipse radios lying about for sale that work?
 

NoCar340

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I'm definitely not the guy from Allpar, but now I'm curious to go look... :D

The only factory Chrysler stereo I have at the moment is the original cassette deck in my '82 Imperial, and I've never even tried to put a tape in it. It badly needs to be disassembled and cleaned, and in my estimation ain't worth the effort.
 

NoCar340

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Sheesh. I don't think I want to know any more about factory radios than I already do.
Simply put, the very-best ones were well behind the curve when compared to what the original owner could've gotten for less money spent on quality aftermarket stuff, usually including professional installation.
 

metallicaman0258

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Sheesh. I don't think I want to know any more about factory radios than I already do.
Simply put, the very-best ones were well behind the curve when compared to what the original owner could've gotten for less money spent on quality aftermarket stuff, usually including professional installation.
Agreed but this thing is too nice to butcher. And it's now an antique so I've got the antique daily thing I can brag about
 
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