Saturday 4 February 2017

It's radio time!


As I got in contact with a XJS owner who was dismantling his 1982 car I obtained some parts from him. And I was Lucky as he also had the Original car radio in it. Unfortunately the shipping costs from the US were a bit expensive but I figured it was worth it. He tested it ok and send me the following pictures.

It was tested beforehand:


It's made in Japan for Jaguar with model no: BLM-105096


It was also suplied with the matching cover (the radio buttons were included as well):


Last week I have fixed the antenna and further connected the radio to the speakers. Although al seemed to be working there was no sound coming out of it. When using the cassetteplayer there was sound. So potentially the radio module was faulty. I also noticed when adjusting the frequencies it was making steps of 200 kHz on odd numbers, ie 96,1 Mhz 96,3 MHz, 96,5 MHz, 96,7 MHz, etc. When having this further checked I came across the following:

FM broadcasts

North American FM broadcast channels are on the odd 200KHz frequencies: 99.5MHz, 100.1MHz, etc. In Europe, channels can be on any multiple of 100KHz, even or odd.
This means that a digital tuner from the USA will not tune European stations properly, resulting in distortion. Some tuner models are switchable between the two schemes, but these are rare. Frequency synthesizing tuners in Europe do their actual tuning in shorter steps (for example 25 kHz). With analogue tuners you have no such problem because they aren't stepped anyway.
Be aware that FM stations in Europe use a different pre-emphasis than those in North America, 75 and 50 microseconds respectively.

This was something I was not aware off. So picking a US car radio (at least a digital one) was not a clever thing. Furthermore it also came to my attention an extra radio cover was missing. See examples below. Unfortunately he did not had this in his possession.





So this meant I had to start searching for the correct European model. This became quite a task though. By now I have been able to find out the following numbers and details:

BLM-105098 <This radio looks similar as above but is slightly different and has a different model nr. I found it on Ebay and it was listed in the USA - so likely not suitable for Europe>

DAC-3373 Clarion PU-7009A < This was the lowest type nr I could find and based on this I think it's also the oldest or the earliest. Looks to be correct for an early 80s model. It's also listed in the official parts list by jaguar classic parts - see picture below (top left)- the parts manual also includes DAC-4066 / DAC-5574 as successor or alternative?>





DAC-3716 Clarion PU-9037C




DAC-4254 < This model I found in another classic parts manual, it's listed as the model used for the XJS 3.6 And below also the DAC-4066 / DAC-5574 as successor>





DAC-4066 Clarion / DAC-5574 <I'm unsure what the correct type nr is for this model, I see both nr's quoted in the online parts manuals>.



DAC-5575 ? <likely very late 80s or early 90s model>




DAC-5931 AJ8300M



DAC-5937 <Picture Missing - unable to find anything>
DAC-5547 <Picture Missing - unable to find anything>


DAC-6571 - Model AJ9150R


Model: AJ8700



DBC-3233 <Picture Missing - unable to find anything>
DBC-4361 <Picture Missing - unable to find anything>

I found some more but they were all 90s models so no need to include them here. Based on the research above it does look like 1 radio has 3 different type nr's: DAC-3716, DAC-4066, DAC-5574
Which is this model:


Now the question remains, is this a time period correct model for a 1984 XJS HE (delivered/registered on 27th January) thus ordered somewhere late 1983. When checking my 1983 brochure it showed a filler case, sigh! Also in THE XJS book I couldn't find a visible picture that would reveal the correct radio. Also reviewing the cars offered for sale in Europe (using Autoscout & Mobile) did not reveal anything. Mostly all aftermarket radio's were installed. I only spotted this strange model (it was on an imported USA 1985 model):


And this one, but this was installed on a XJ (looks like an early 80s model as well):


So I'm still none the wiser. Then I figured to check my owners manual. It came with the car and I hope it's the Original (meaning it was not bought later and included). It's printed in English, I'm unsure if Dutch was available. The print part no is AJM 9028 edition 3. On the last page I suspect the date is printed 8/83. If so then this is the correct time period manual. And in the manual I did find the correct radio displayed:





My gut feel says though this radio model is more like late eighties rather then early eighties, but maybe I'm wrong. Good thing is, this model I have come across a few times so hopefully I can obtain it easily.


3 comments:

  1. you want the same model as the one i have in my car the early Clarion one, you have a picture of it above, i have the Jaguar radio owners manual for it also this is the correct unit for my car 1981, i bought mine on e bay u.k. some 10 years ago now the manual tuning knob one is the unit for these early cars fitted by the factory ,my car is april 1981 one of the very early build new model then H.E. cars april 81 is when the H.E. went into production , the radio cass wont have changed by 1984 and if your car is a 1982 as the bronze coloued one at the top of this article then its exactly the same unit thats in my car also these are still around on e bay its worth asking many of the xjs breaker yards in the u.k. also if they have one of these units from an early H.E. car ,

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    Replies
    1. Thanks again Glenn. Appreciate your feedback. My car is a early 1984 and also has the analogue clock. As such I prefer the old fashion analogue radio as well (DAC-3373 as listed above). Mind you, the 1982 US radio I obtained earlier was a time period correct model AND digital. Have you read also my other blog on this topic? It's this one http://erwinxjs.blogspot.nl/2017/02/service-bulletin-jd-0186-dec-1985-jan.html And in there I made a reference to this Service Bulletin: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B8teqGKDb3gkUFRLWWcySXkwaTQ In there you will see that the digital DAC-3372 is apparently the correct one based on my car's VIN. Out of interest, what is the VIN of your car?

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  2. Interesting stuff, we are just testing out a Clarion from a 1987 XJS. Does yours have wiring information labelled on the unit itself?

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