New(er) OEM Deck!

As you may recall from an earlier post, Nismo Omori Factory installed an OEM radio/cassette deck that I found on Yahoo Auctions to give the car an OEM look. They installed it but...

Unfortunately as you can see, the cassette deck wasn't working properly in that it would immediately spit out any cassette you tried to put in. This is important as anyone who's lived in Japan knows that Japanese AM and FM radio stations are terrible. Long on talk and short on music.  So generally speaking an alternative music source is essential, whether that be cassette, CD, MD or now, iPhone/Android/Bluetooth.

Here is the back story - I searched for but couldn't find my original Nissan deck that came with my car (which I had removed for a 1-DIN Pioneer Navi shortly after I bought the car in 2005!)

It was a nice compact 1-DIN unit...

With a retractable screen for the navigation system! (Before Google Maps, people!!)

So for this effort to go back to OEM I had actually initially found and bought 2 OEM radio/cassette decks on Yahoo Auctions - one came with the HVAC unit that I couldn't use either - and the second one I bought because it looked to me to be in better condition. Unfortunately, when Nismo tried to install it - it turns out it had connectors NOT in the 10 pin/6 pin arrangement found on the later 33s and 34s, but rather the 4pin/6pin/4pin arrangement found on the BNR32. Weird!

So I couldn't use this deck, even though it's apparently for the BCNR33... and super clean...going back on Yahoo Auctions I guess!

Yahoo Auction tip - make sure to check the connectors!

Just in case someone out there is in a Series 1 car and needs the correct OEM cassette deck parts number...

Anyway, even though the car's interior LOOKS OEM, if it doesn't FUNCTION like OEM, that bothers me... so as soon as I saw the video of the installed deck spitting out the cassette tape, I went ahead and found yet ANOTHER OEM deck on Yahoo Auctions...this one the seller had a 30 day guarantee that it would work (and the photos showed the proper 10 pin/6pin connectors)!

So right after I got the car home (and brake lamp fuse pulled) I disassembled the dash cluster and swapped out the defective deck with the replacement deck.

Take out the center console, remove steering wheel, remove the steering column covers and remove the dash fascia

About to remove the defective deck

Comparing the newly purchased deck (left) with the one I removed (right) - the one on the left even LOOKS cleaner/newer!!

Success! The newer deck plays tapes with no problem!

So why go to all this trouble? Because these used decks are cheap and I have a bunch of old cassette tapes still at home that I can still use in installing new speakers!  Also, before swapping out the front Morel Tempo Ultra 602 component door speakers (which Nismo Omori did not remove), I wanted to see how they sounded without their accompanying tweeters.  And from an audio source other than the radio.  And if possible replace one side with another (new) speaker of my own choosing, just to compare.

Note - of course I'm not after high fidelity/SQ at this time. Just returning to OEM-esque.

But how does it sound now? Not bad, right?

These mid range Morel woofer, being driven only off the OEM radio/cassette deck (2x 15W!) - actually sound pretty good with surprisingly good bass, except of course there is no treble without the separate tweeters. In conjunction with the old Pioneer coaxial 6.5 inch speakers in the rear deck, it sounds weird even if the sound is clean, because the sound stage is coming from behind and the personalities of the speakers are so different.

In my next post, I'll talk about how I removed the Morels from the doors... but then ran into some weird problems. I swear Worx is going to haunt me for as long as I own this car...