Modern radio conversion review - Aurora Design

[LithiumCobalt]

Thought I would take a few minutes to share a potential good product with the forum in case anyone is looking for an undetectable upgrade.....I am mostly a purist. If something cannot be accomplished without making it obvious, I am not interested. With that, I went on a quest to figure out how I could get decent audio in my car without cutting things up, taking up room in my glovebox compartment, running a bunch of wires all over, installing amplifiers, etc. What I found the best solution to be is an upgrade to modern guts using the original radio chassis. The result is a radio that looks exactly as original and operates exactly as original (only better). It was not a cheap endeavor (what is on these cars?), but what I ended up with was a VERY nice radio.

There are a lot of different dealers that offer this service and they are all about the same price for the upgrade. I chose Tayman Electrical in Sarasota, Florida. No real specific reason other than it appeared they do good work and are very particular according to their website. Very important when spending this kind of money. I actually bought an original Town&Country AM/FM radio used in the 66-67s, since my car originally only had an AM unit (although these can also be converted to AM/FM), and sent it out to Gary Tayman on 4/2. Just got it back a week ago. He will tell you that the Lincoln signal-seeking radios are a PITA to deal with, which is why it took him so long.

Right out of the box, you can tell that the work done was top notch. Per Gary's commentary, he completely disassembled the entire unit, cleaned and refurbished EVERYTHING. On top of that, the chassis was powdercoated, face was cleaned and the chrome polished. Check this out:

I sprung for the USB input, and the 4.1 line level output jacks:

Can also get Bluetooth functionality, but I decided to skip that. A little too modern and yet another added expense.

Gary even took the time to use the original wiring plugs with the new harness so all I had to do was plug in and hookup my speaker wires and I was in business:

Finally had a chance to install the unit tonight to give it a test and WOW. Definitely worth the money. Haven't had a chance to test the optional USB input, but will get to that a little later. All of the controls appear to work as normal, however, I ran into one snag and that is after using the TOWN and COUNTRY functions two or three times, it no longer will advance. Will have to give Gary a call on this. Could just be a simple programming issue and I have no doubt he will make it right. Other than that small issue, I am wholly satisfied and impressed. A lot of times it can be difficult to figure out how to modernize your car and have it be undetectable. This is one of those ways. The default Aurora configuration is to mount an LED somewhere on the face so that you can see when you are locked on a station, etc - Gary skips that to keep things looking totally stock.

All in, it ran me $630 for the conversion. There are cheaper options out there, but thought it would be silly to have a factory radio in the dash and have it not function in favor of some other modern alternative installed elsewhere and taking up space. Here is the Aurora Design website and Tayman's website if anyone is interested.

http://www.tech-retro.com/Aurora_Design/Home.html
http://www.taymanelectrical.com/

[LithiumCobalt]

Also wanted to add that the sound quality is excellent with this unit, although, it wasn't much of a high bar with the worn out 50 year old AM tuner.

Tested out the tuner a bit more and it is impressive. I was able to pickup an FM station 40 miles away clear as a bell while parked inside the garage with the doors down!

[stevedrums]

looks great. glad you're happy with it
just a little expensive for me

[LithiumCobalt]

Yeah, a bit on the pricey side, but I also added options and had a signal-seeker radio so that really added up. Non signal-seekers with no extras runs around $375 or so, so a bit more reasonable.

[LincolnShire]

I got Barry to do the conversion on mine. I wanted to keep the dash original with original speaker placements so it meant mono only. It was the original AM only unit but he added FM, Bluetooth, a USB for charging only and inputs for a sub for that mono sub sound!

Here’s a link to his work on my exact unit. It’s kinda interesting to see how it makes it all work.

https://youtu.be/rBT5QQamCUA

[LithiumCobalt]

One of the cool things about the Aurora units is that it automatically detects your speaker configuration and adjusts the output as necessary. I did something non-correct with my speaker setup by using original kickpanels and speaker grilles from a '67 with the optional 8-track system so I actually have a four speaker stereo system and disabled the single dash speaker. Not show correct, but it works.

[siglumous]

Hi Nick,

Glad to hear you're happy with it. I have mine out at Rick's Radio in VA Beach for a similar Aurora upgrade. Actually, two: an AM-8Track Stereo unit that feeds to the stock four speakers for my navy blue Town Car sedan and an AM/FM with the tranny-mounted stereo converter / four speaker multiplexor for my cameo sedan. Problem is, I sent it to him on 4/1 and he told me it will be 3-4 months at least since he's so back up! Of course I never inquired about how long when I originally spoke with him, so my fault. He raves about the Aurora chips and how happy everyone is after..

I did like what I read and my research on the Aurora solution, and now with your testimonial I'm more excited. Should gone to Gary--he'd have the Lincoln radio experience under his belt, a quicker turn-around time, and now that I think about it I'll probably be paying VA sales tax since I live in VA (whoops, bad choice). Hope mine comes back all cosmetically restored like yours.

Thanks for posting that.

[LithiumCobalt]

One other thing I forgot to mention...apparently the original AM/FM band changing gear inside the 66-67 radios is made of nylon and are usually brittle by now. Luckily, Baker's has a reproduction available made from steel. Although I feel an outrageous price for something like this at $39, I did buy one and had Gary install during the surgery to prevent any future issues since it is a known problem.

http://www.bakersauto.com/GEAR-RADIO-AM ... nfo/FMG66/

[Gerald F. Chase]

I hereby am betting that good radio refurbishing outfits.. might eventually offer their services toward greater performance in 1980s Lincoln Town Car radios----which, truth be told, are disappointingly ordinary... for FoMoCo's top product.

I remember 1960s Lincoln radios working FAR better than 1980s ones in Town Cars. The innate higher quality of 60s radios put 80s radios to shame.

There's two things that radio repairers should know:

1. Not everyone listens to FM most of the time. There are many who want GOOD AM performance... which is hard to get.. in the era of 31" fixed mast antennae.

2. FM bands should have a switch to switch to MONO when FM Stereo is too noisy in marginal areas. The bandwidth is wider in MONO... and thus, less QRM (noise). Give me FM MONO over more-likely noisy FM Stereo... every time!

[LithiumCobalt]

There just isn't a lot of programming available on AM any more so nothing is designed for it. It's an afterthought now, for the most part. I do switch to it when I get far enough away that the FM quality starts to suffer since I listen to talk radio that is multicast in both bands.

You can probably make the argument that quality has suffered on just about everything. Some things have gotten better, but the vast majority of things are made cheaper, unfortunately. I remember someone telling me about the development of the radios for Ford in the 80s. I think it was Pioneer that was contracted to do it at the time. Their original prototype was supposedly very well built with lots of features. Ford said it was overkill and had them strip all kinds of stuff out of it to get the cost down. And, this is what we get. The original AM radio in my '67 still worked before I removed it this spring. You can't even get 25 years out of those crappy units built in the 80s.

Search for Paul Protos. He is the master at rebuilding the 80s units.

[LithiumCobalt]

Thought I would provide an update on my experience with this conversion so far....

1. The Town & Country seek function stopped working after about a day. Gary mentioned that the mechanical governor inside the radio was probably at fault and that I'd have to send it back to him for adjustment/replacement. Not really happy about that, but whatever. He was supposed to rebuild and test everything so it will be going back to him once the driving season is over.
2. The USB functionality is near worthless to me. Unless you plan to have USB stick with only 100 songs on it, don't bother. I loaded all 20gb of my music onto a stick and the scan function never finishes. It also does not recognize iPhones so I cannot simply plug it in and use my phone for queueing up music.
3. Everything else seems to function as promised, so far. Tuning functionality is just fine, even with the antenna down. Of course, no big bass output from this unit - would need an external amp for such a thing.
4. When I send back to Gary this fall, I plan to have him add Bluetooth functionality so that I can stream and control music via my iPhone.

Overall, still pleased with the rebuild. Just needs a little tweaking. A high price for what you get, but the fact that I have a signal-seeking radio and additional options really drove the price up.

[kdtbird]

I wonder if they can do the same when you have a quadraphonic 8 track?

[LithiumCobalt]

Would be worth calling and asking. Probably just an additional input that the unit would have to sense.

[TonyC]

Nice to see radio rebuilders. I have a question, though: How do those rebuilders pull off a rebuild? Do they have the original schematics of these radios to go by? That would make for a very big library of schematics.

---Tony

[LithiumCobalt]

No idea where he gets his information. Tayman’s website includes some history of how he got started in the business, though. Apparently it is a generational thing for him as his father and grandfather started a variation of the business long ago.