Tommy Dat Posted January 14 Report Share Posted January 14 The radio in my 1980 Datsun 720 powers on but makes no sound. I have checked all the fuses and do not find any issues with wiring. I bought some 4" speakers and tried them and it makes the faintest sound but is not controllable with knobs. when i removed the radio it appears to be hardwired into the unit without a harness clip and the antenna does not have a plug either. how do I know if it is the radio itself that is bad? can I cut the wires and splice in a harness for a replacement radio? I would prefer to keep the stock radio but I have not been able to troubleshoot the issue. Any help is greatly appreciated. Quote Link to comment
Thomas Perkins Posted January 14 Report Share Posted January 14 (edited) I remember Audiovox back in the 70 's.Time to upgrade. Edited January 14 by Thomas Perkins Quote Link to comment
720_Jeff Posted January 14 Report Share Posted January 14 Did you try AM? I have a couple trucks, FM doesn't work, but AM does. Quote Link to comment
Tommy Dat Posted January 14 Author Report Share Posted January 14 42 minutes ago, Thomas Perkins said: I remember Audiovox back in the 70 's.Time to upgrade. thanks, I will most likely need to. Just cut the wires and then wire up a harness for the new unit? Quote Link to comment
Tommy Dat Posted January 14 Author Report Share Posted January 14 37 minutes ago, 720_Jeff said: Did you try AM? I have a couple trucks, FM doesn't work, but AM does. I did not, thanks- I will give that a try Quote Link to comment
DwayneOxford Posted January 15 Report Share Posted January 15 Look into Crutchfield, they may have a solution. Quote Link to comment
Tommy Dat Posted January 15 Author Report Share Posted January 15 10 hours ago, DwayneOxford said: Look into Crutchfield, they may have a solution. thanks for the tip Quote Link to comment
IZRL Posted January 15 Report Share Posted January 15 Do you have a pic of where the wires from the truck connect to the stereo? If I understand correctly, you're saying that someone cut off the original connector that comes from the truck's wiring harness and then spliced the stereo wires directly onto the trucks wires? They usually sell replacement connectors to replace the vehicles original harness connector. But it looks like there isn't an aftermarket replacement available for this truck. You could try and find an original female connector for your truck which would be the easiest way to wire the stereo. All you would do is match the wire colors and splice them back together. But by the looks of it, "if" you find an original connector its gonna be pricey. Therefore in this case I would disconnect the trucks wires from the old stereos wires and splice the new wires from the new stereo in. New stereos come with a harness that has a connector on one side and loose wires on the other. The connector goes into the stereo and you have to buy an aftermarket male connector that connects to your vehicles connector. You have to splice the stereo's connector to the aftermarket connector you purchased and then you can just connect the stereo onto the vehicles oem connector. The new stereo comes with it's own wiring diagram for the connector that comes with it. But since your truck doesn't have the oem connector. Your only option is to splice the wires directly from the new stereos harness to the loose wires coming from the truck. This is a bit more complicated as you have to figure out which wires are for what on your trucks harness (Power, ground, speakers). I was reading another post on this forum where they mentioned that the 1980 720 only came with one speaker originally. I can't really tell, how many wires are coming from the stereo and how many wires are coming from the truck? Quote Link to comment
Thomas Perkins Posted January 15 Report Share Posted January 15 (edited) Someone on Facebook is selling this for 35 bucks.It's listed on Nissan 720 owners.Steve Smith is the seller. Edited January 15 by Thomas Perkins 1 Quote Link to comment
Thomas Perkins Posted January 16 Report Share Posted January 16 The radio has found a new home in a 720. Quote Link to comment
Tommy Dat Posted January 17 Author Report Share Posted January 17 10 hours ago, Thomas Perkins said: The radio has found a new home in a 720. Did you buy the radio? I don't see the post on FB. Quote Link to comment
Thomas Perkins Posted January 17 Report Share Posted January 17 No,But the guy that did posted a picture of him showing it off.Here is my Blue tooth Kenwood. Quote Link to comment
IZRL Posted January 17 Report Share Posted January 17 11 hours ago, Tommy Dat said: Did you buy the radio? I don't see the post on FB. By the sounds of it, your vehicle doesn't have the radio connector. So unless you find a connector to replace your old connector. Buying a used oem stereo is not going to help you. It's not going to have any wires for you to splice into. Quote Link to comment
Thomas Perkins Posted January 18 Report Share Posted January 18 (edited) Hey Tommy.Their is a Nissan radio on Ebay with pig tail for 134.95 or best offer on Ebay for sale.like the one i posted before.Has 10 pictures.Type this in to Ebay to see.He wants 6.99 to ship.85 NISSAN DATSUN 720 Pickup OEM CLARION AM/FM STEREO WITH WIRING PIGTAIL Edited January 18 by Thomas Perkins Quote Link to comment
Thomas Perkins Posted January 18 Report Share Posted January 18 (edited) I have a used Kenwood C.D. player that I bought from Circiut City.It is nice.You can put Cd's in it and name them.Everytime you put in in,the name will appear.Also can do all radio ststions too..Has clock.The cover comes off.I Have 2 pioneer 6x9 3 way speakers and 2 small speakers the same size in mine.They are also pioneer.I have the manual.Have the wiring pigtail.I have the 6x9 speaker boxes but I am using them in my truck.I have Bluetooth and Alexa.Here is a video of it. Edited January 18 by Thomas Perkins Quote Link to comment
Thomas Perkins Posted January 18 Report Share Posted January 18 (edited) Here is my Kenwood.https://youtu.be/u2p8yubP0eU?si=K3iQCHJzmhU5sxyC Edited January 18 by Thomas Perkins Quote Link to comment
Thomas Perkins Posted January 18 Report Share Posted January 18 Just found another one like yours with pig tail 75 bucks..With wood grain like the other one. Quote Link to comment
pidge Posted January 19 Report Share Posted January 19 Someone told me once if the antenna wire is disconnected you won’t get anything out the speaker as well. Maybe look into that? I’m not an audio guy. -Pidge Quote Link to comment
IZRL Posted January 19 Report Share Posted January 19 (edited) Or you can just ride in silence. With older cars my nose and ears are always on high alert. Always listening and smelling for signs that something went wrong. I have this datsun stereo in my truck that works fine aside from the fact that the only setting on it that works on the right knob is the "MW" option. I haven't bothered to check if its the FM or AM setting? So this stereo doesn't get any play time. If I truly feel like listening to music in the truck I could just use my JBL GO3 bluetooth speaker. It sounds way better than the stereo anyway. On top of all that the radio stations suck around here. On the other hand in my daily driver. I've invested in a good system. Listening to music is very important to me. I like the music to sound as close to what the producers/artist meant it to sound as possible. I have the JVC KD-X360BTS stereo that I paid like $80 + tax on special. Which I highly recommend. Doesn't take CD's only Aux, Bluetooth, and USB. But who has CDs these days anyway. It's got Alpine 6" mids and Rockford fosgate tweeters in the front. Alpine 6X9s in the back, 10" subwoofer, and two Amplifiers one for the sub and one for the mids. I chose the jvc because it lets you micro adjust the sound. You can adjust the sound by frequency Range in Hz. You can tweak it from around 30hz all the way to like 15k hz (don't quote me on the Hz range). Just to give you an idea of how specific I am about sound. It probably took me a total of like 6 hrs to set the stereo settings to where it sounded as good as it could sound to my ears. If anybody picks this stereo up, I'll be happy to give you my settings, see if it works for you. Edited January 19 by IZRL Quote Link to comment
Thomas Perkins Posted January 20 Report Share Posted January 20 Nice JVC.I prefer Kenwood.I still use my 150 or so C.D's.I also got the XM radio on mine.I went all out.New speakers.You can get the kit to connect to your steering wheel to use or a remote.I also got a new antenna cable.My face plate is removable.I can change the face plate to 20 different colors.It has Alexa too.Check out the video on it. 1 Quote Link to comment
IZRL Posted January 25 Report Share Posted January 25 On 1/19/2024 at 5:12 PM, Thomas Perkins said: Nice JVC.I prefer Kenwood.I still use my 150 or so C.D's.I also got the XM radio on mine.I went all out.New speakers.You can get the kit to connect to your steering wheel to use or a remote.I also got a new antenna cable.My face plate is removable.I can change the face plate to 20 different colors.It has Alexa too.Check out the video on it. Kenwood and Pioneer have always been great car stereos. They are the Hondas of the stereo world, affordable and reliable. I have about 30 cds in my collection. But today I prefer collecting mp3s. I have 56 gigabytes of music in my mp3 collection. Out of all that music I only regularly listen to 500 songs that I have saved on my phone and play on my stereo through bluetooth. This is the first stereo I've owned that doesn't accept cds. It threw me off when I pulled it out of the box. The stereo is about a 1/4 of the length and weight of stereos that accept cds. I was like what the hell, where's the rest of the stereo? These cd-less stereos seem to be more affordable too. Quote Link to comment
Thomas Perkins Posted January 25 Report Share Posted January 25 (edited) Stereo prices have dropped big time.The Kenwood I replaced was over 300,which was back in 2000 from Circuit city,and this new one was 150.My wife has a 6 disc player in her 04 Lincoln LS,but she is not big like me on Stereo's.You got a good deal on yours. Edited January 25 by Thomas Perkins Quote Link to comment
Tommy Dat Posted February 6 Author Report Share Posted February 6 On 1/17/2024 at 10:08 PM, Thomas Perkins said: Here is my Kenwood.https://youtu.be/u2p8yubP0eU?si=K3iQCHJzmhU5sxyC thanks, did you have to modify the box at all? my old one measures only 6.25 inches across the front. thanks Quote Link to comment
Thomas Perkins Posted February 6 Report Share Posted February 6 It had a Radio shack cassette player in it when I bought the 720 in 94,he modified it.He also made some boxes to put bigger speakers in the kick panels. I also put new speakers in there.I had Jiimmy stereo put my new Kenwood in.It has Xm too. Quote Link to comment
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