My partner Justice and I were excited to get his Old’s 442 in the shop for some audio and interior upgrades. Having a ’68 Mustang roll into our shop as our first job was pretty cool, but working on this Old’s 442 build just a year later was another exciting venture for LIS Audio! Check out how clean this car is all the way through and read up on what LIS Audio did to keep the audio system just as impressive as the car!
The Oldsmobile at the builders place almost ready for LIS Audio to our thing!
This is one clean Oldsmobile 442 at LIS Audio ready for a new stereo and some new interior!
The under side of the 442 is just as pretty as the top and we had to show you.
Introduction
A client brought us his 1969 Oldsmobile 442, that had just been restored, to have a full audio system and much of the interior installed. This client didn’t want anything extravagant when it came to the stereo, just for it be above the exhaust and wind noise when driving.The builder did a great job of getting this Old’s ready for us to do our thing. We did some custom fabrication work and added a good deal of wiring to get the audio right! Check it out!
All of the interior parts laid out and ready for assembly and installation.
You can see this entire vehicle is pristine, from top to bottom, and once we finished, from inside and out.
The interior prior to interior panels installations but just after running wires under the carpet for a clean factory look.
The Old’s started off as somewhat of a rough foundation with many exterior and interior parts needing to be replaced before it got to us. Hushmat sound deadener was already installed previously, which is exactly what we would have recommended. The exterior was finished and it was up to us to tighten up the interior! The original antenna was no longer in the vehicle so we ordered and installed a new antenna. The client brought us interior pieces so we could restore the door panels, carpet, rear pillars and install the seats. From here we finished up the audio installation.
The old rear pillar dress panels needed to be reworked and rewrapped to bring them back to life.
Most of the interior of the Old’s assembled and ready for a some custom work in the trunk!
The rear pillars restored and ready to be installed.
We started by fabricating the factory dash bezel to fit a Single DIN JVC stereo, which was originally meant to fit a “dual knob” old school style radio. We also added a universal bass knob to the dash bezel in order to control the subwoofer volume independently from the rest of the system. The JVC stereo being a media player and not including the CD player allows for an easy fit in an old school dash like this 442. The media player allows our client to play music via Bluetooth, USB, 3.5mm AUX or to tune into AM/FM radio station. There is also the option to stream Pandora, Spotify or iHeart Radio through Bluetooth with control from the stereo.
The factory stereo dash kit being modified to home the new JVC stereo.
The JVC stereo with the Bluetooth mic installed directly into the new custom bezel.
The prefabricated speaker kick panels and Audio Dynamics speakers being prepped for installation in the 442.
The client also brought in some premolded ABS kick panels to have speakers installed in the front of the Oldsmobile. We wanted to avoid using the single center dash factory location where the speaker was installed ordinarily, which offers bad sound staging. For the kicks we decided to install Audio Dynamics 1000 Series 5.25” coaxial speakers and left the 6X9” JBL speakers in the rear deck lid. We sent the Stinger Oxygen Free Copper wires for the front speakers, and the RCA’s to connect our amplifier, under the carpet for a clean factory like installation.
The wiring in the trunk (right pic, amp wires) as well as under the hood (left pic, fuse holder) nice and tidy.
The Audio Dynamics Standard Series 60.4 amplifier and 12 inch 500 Series subwoofer installed into the newly built custom enclosure and amplifier rack.
The subwoofer enclosure was ported to optimize output while using birch wood to reduce weight and for increased overall rigidity.
To the trunk we added a custom build sub box and amplifier rack, which was tucked neatly out of the way as the client requested. The structure was built out of birch wood to keep it as light as possible. We used an Audio Dynamics 500 Series 12” subwoofer and an Audio Dynamics Standard Series 60.4 to run the subwoofer and the front speakers in the kicks. The rear deck speakers remain powered off of the stereo. This Old’s 442 sounds and looks beautiful now! There’s no dying the bass and yet there is still a ton of trunk space!!
Check out this YouTube video of the overall installation and restoration!
The Old’s 442 with its large trunk still plenty useful while homing a large 12″ custom subwoofer enclosure!
Thank you for checking our LIS Audio Blog! Watch for the March client vehicle feature! Who knows which car or truck it could be! Maybe yours!
Contact LIS Audio if you have any questions…
Call: (913) 912- 6990
E-mail: info@lisaudio.com
Website: http://www.lisaudio.com
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