Can't live without my radio....

I finally got around to troubleshooting the FM radio reception. I got the head unit out relatively easily, and found out how to get access to all kinds of other goodies as a bonus. My theory with respect to the radio was this: Earlier, when I took out the panel under the glove box, I found a stray wire that looked a lot like an antenna connection. I assumed that it was an unconnected cable that may be the issue with my FM reception. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), when I pulled the radio out, everything was neatly plugged in, and working properly. For fun, I went to the connection at the antenna mast (a regular repair item on these models) and reseated the antenna connection there. Same result. AM is great. All FM stations are dull static. I'm going to post a picture of the unconnected cable to my regular message board to see if those in the know can identify the cable in question.

At this point, I am starting to think it may be a problem with the Becker unit itself, which is yet another common failure point of this car. Now, knowing the extent of road and wind noise at anything over 30 MPH, and how inadequate the two small speakers are in light of all that racket, this project may be delayed until much later, until I can do some sort of effective, yet tasteful upgrade. There are lots of examples of pretty cool aftermarket stereo installations on the web that have given me some inspiration, but I'm thinking of holding off till some of the other issues are taken care of (refer to to-do lists in previous posts). Most of the message boards say that stereo systems in this car aren't really worth it unless you drive with the hard top anyway. Since I intend this to be primarily a top-down cruiser, I think it can wait, or I can listen to sports radio or the news if I get bored.

Speaking of top-down cruising, I went out to dinner and drinks with an old work colleague last night. Wouldn't you know it, the soft top was totally stuck closed. I tried for 15 minutes to get the darn thing to unlatch, to no avail. So, I had to drive from here, to Pioneer Square, through downtown all the way to Ballard for dinner WITH THE TOP UP! (I know, I know, whine, whine, whine...) Luckily, with some quick internet sleuthing, I was able to find some quick fixes and got it unlatched. I won't go into details, but suffice to say a long screwdriver is now a permanent fixture in the glove box to assist with emergency soft-top deployment. Once I got the cover unlatched, I got some white lithium grease and lubed the connections for the convertible top mechanism. It's never worked better - at least since I've owned it.

Since I was armed with a can of white lithium grease (handy stuff - I'm bringing my can of it to work tomorrow to stop the squeaking on the binding machine in the copy room across from my office!) I took off the air cleaner and lubed the throttle linkages. the pedal always felt a little sticky, so I thought it was a worthwhile 15 minutes of work. I've got to go on another middle distance road trip for work tomorrow, so I'll get a chance to see if the cruise control actuation is smoother and can be used without invoking nausea. Unfortunately, in the spirit of 'two steps forward, one step back' I did stumble onto another issue which will lead to a complex longer-term project, which I'll blog about later. In the meantime, hope you had a great weekend.