On Saturday, my friend Joe and I went at replacing the entire stereo system. We discovered that the previous owner had at some point removed the rear side panels as the retaining clips for the side panels were already gone. That saved us a lot of time, but it also made us very cautious. What else might he have done???
This DeLorean was a 2,300-mile DeLorean when I bought it and Rob Grady had given it the once over by the previous owner. However, it appears certain things were left waiting for me - like a mouse nest under the passenger seat. Up until this point in the car's life, the seats had never been removed! Fortunately the carpet was fine.
The install took from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. because we had to disassemble the entire console and kneepads, as well as the front head unit and the rear walls and shelf. It was really looking like a major pile of crap when we were in the middle of it. At one point, Joe looked at the gutted console, laughed and said, "Wow, that looks kind of indimidating, doesn't it!"
I was really glad to have his help. He knows stereos and knew exactly what to do in every instance.
We installed a Pioneer retractable touchscreen DVD head unit. I chose it based both on its features and because the outer face when closed was very understated and did not stand out against the rest of the interior. The speakers were of the Kicker variety, KS series. The original Craig speakers were totally blown and the original Craig radio still worked, even the face, so removing it for preservation was a good thing.
Just laying down new speaker wire and installing the new speakers was a world of improvement. The front speakers were a pain in the tush to install and we settled for installing them at a slight angle with a nylon spacer on the outside edge of each one. That simplified things nicely.
The PO appeared to have added a bunch of speaker wire back in the past. We removed that entirely and laid down new wire. The final result was worth the effort. The stereo worked flawlessly upon first install. Now my DeLorean has a better system than my daily driver! Thanks, Joe!
