Z31 Amp refresh

[jeewiz13]

Hi everyone, I'm new here but I wanted to share what I did to the stock amp on my 87. I like to keep my radios stock but I wanted to make the audio better. The stock amp's 30 year capacitors were probably pretty dried up. I desoldered all of electrolytic ones and replaced them. Cost me less than $14 dollars from digikey. It definitely sounds a lot better.
Make sure you are confident in your solder skills before attempting.

[Z_Karma]

Nice work! I like to keep the stock stuff as well.


Greg84AE repaired stock AE clarion head units in much the same way. I have the factory service manuals for the earlier non EQ Hitachi radios and had plans to do this but that's as far as it got.

It's also possible to patch a Bluetooth receiver into the cassette pre-amp circuit and disable some cassette mechanism sensing switches. I've got one disassembled at my bench at work but workload shifted into high gear and haven't touched it in months.

[jeewiz13]

I also took my radio apart before doing this. Wish I would have done this first. It sat for a while before I put it back together also.
Any idea on what makes the cassette player squeal though? I'm using a tape adapter now and it's so noisy.

[Z_Karma]

If it squeals and not related to the particular cassette, it is probably a dried out brass bushing in the tape drive mechanism.