1957 Cadillac Wonderbar Radio wiring question

[carguyblack]

Hello all,
Does anybody have information about the wiring hookup for a 1957 Cadillac Wonderbar radio? We have a restored radio that was installed into our car but perhaps wired to the speakers incorrectly. The power comes on in the radio, dial lights come on, vibrator makes the noise but we are getting nothing out of either speakers. No crackling. Nothing. I am back to the beginning on this tomorrow and will check the chasis ground to the speakers themselves but also want to make sure we routed the external wires correctly everywhere. I have no schematic to follow so I am hoping one of you could verify a few things for us. Thanks for the help!
I would even welcome a cell phone call at 269-569-0718 on this as we are digging into it tomorrow and I might miss a forum response.  Chuck Dykstra - Portage, MI

[Doug Houston]

I just did a '57 radio for a guy. It was the regular set, and not the Brougham model.  The car is a converible, but the radio was the same for closed cars or convertibles in 1957.

There are two speaker lines coming from the receiver chassis. In both cases, there are two conductors to the speaker; one with a connector to the front speaker, and two others going to the rear speaker. I recall that the rear speaker wires are brown and black. On the set I worked on, some blacksmith had cut the rear speaker wires, so I don't know what the termination is for them. Somehow, they would connect into the body harness.

If you bench test the set before installing it in the car, best to clip on a test speaker to either pair of the speaker wires. Put the front-rear speaker control mid position, and either pair of wires should give you sound.

If there is no action from the speaker leads, it will be necessary to go to the power amplifier chassis (the one with the vibrator), and see if there is signal right off of the output transformer. I can supply you with a reprint of the Delco service folder, if it'll help. My address is in the membership directory.

[carguyblack]

Thank you to those who came to my rescue, especially Doug and Jose! We did get to the solution to the problem. We systematically went through the whole thing again bench testing everything and determined that the issue was with the antenna. This was only corrected after we had completely taken the dash apart again and removed the radio as well as removing the antenna assembly. After a mere 8 hours, we were back in business!! What a deal, right?
Anyway, the threaded antenna cable end into the antenna was the culprit. When threading it tight, it was pulling the contact pin away from the cable and loosing continuity. We epoxied the backside of the mounting and that held it in place securely until the cable was threaded back into the antenna. Once full contact was made, viola! Old time radio once again! Just a side note: I had no idea an antenna loss would be indicated by no sound at all in the speakers, not even a crackle. I sure thought I'd be hearing static and white noise through it, but there was nothing until the antenna made connection. For those in this same position, this info may be helpful? There, on to the next little project! Thanks again, Chuck