How many actually use their 8 tracks if the car has one?

[Ghoste]

For all of the fine folks who have an old 8 track unit in their car, do many of you actually use them?  

[maxwellwedge]

I do! The cars gets treated to the music they were born with....Stones, Zep, Santana, Jeff Beck, Hendrix, Cream etc. !!

[Ghoste]

Do you do anything to the tapes as far as care and feeding?

[maxwellwedge]

Do you do anything to the tapes as far as care and feeding?

Nah - just throw them in the glove box or console.

[XS29J8]

Ghoste, Keep mine in the glovebox..........listen to Stepenwolf every time I drive the Charger.....Doors, Beatles, Cream, Creedence, Deep Purple etc. etc. 



Steve

[Ghoste]

I never had one that lasted long, they always broke at that splice with the channel switching tape on it.  And that was when they were young.

[mauve66]

i've seen places on the web that rebuild the decks and i think they go through the tapes also and fix the splices, but i could be dreaming
haven't had an 8 track since 83

[1969chargerrtse]

   Cool question and answers.

[Ghoste]

haven't had an 8 track since 83

  I still have about a dozen of them laying around but that is likely the last year I ever used one.

[68blue]

I took the 8 track out of my 68, figured finding the tapes and keeping them working would probably be more trouble than it was worth.

[tan top]

 mine had a am /8track , never worked !! thought it was original to the car till  decoded the R11 code !   so i put the original  am radio  in  


but if the  8track was working would of left it in ! & used it while out cruzing

[moparstuart]

I do! The cars gets treated to the music they were born with....Stones, Zep, Santana, Jeff Beck, Hendrix, Cream etc. !!

you have great musical taste  

   I can listen to 8 tracks and watch DVD's

[moparstuart]

any 8 track experts know what all these components are ?   here is my 8 track thread


     http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,60797.0.html
     

[draftingmonkey]

Neither of my Chargers came with 8 Track but a tech buddy of mine restored a British-Leyland AM/FM/8 Track unit that I want to install under the dash.  Most likely in the '74 but I may change my mind and put it in the '67.  Have two home 8 track player/recorders and 80+ tapes.  If you are interested there is some good info on 8 tracks over here http://www.8trackheaven.com/ including on how to maintain them.

[RangerDan440]

My Charger doesnt have one but my 77 Pontiac Grand Prix does (in fact I dont think its ever been used before); my father-in-law hooked me up with some killer 8-tracks for it-Blue Oyster Cult, The Eagles, Rush, Styx, Black Sabbath, Jethro Tull, Frampton Comes Alive and I listen to them all the time.  Its cool hearing the music I love in a car that was new when it came out (I grew up in the 80s) 

I also have an Ipod converter so I might have the only car on the planet where I can switch from an 8-track to an Ipod

[oldcarnut]

I still have the Craig under dash I had in my first Charger in 75. Plays still but I have to wiggle the tape around a little.  Just keep shifting it from one car to the next as I can't seem to part with it.  Its in my 69 Coronet R/T for now.

[1969chargerrtse]

I still have the Craig under dash I had in my first Charger in 75. Plays still but I have to wiggle the tape around a little.  Just keep shifting it from one car to the next as I can't seem to part with it.  Its in my 69 Coronet R/T for now.

Is that a Hemi air cleaner?  Hemi or not, can you post a picture of your car? 

[oldcarnut]

No Hemi--well um if you ask some of the locals they had a 440 Hemi just like it    Here a link to a topic where there is a couple of pics.  http://www.dodgecharger.com/forum/index.php/topic,38471.0.html  
Here's the outside of it.  
I have a regular in dash 8 track player somewhere sitting in a drawer.  I can find 8 tracks in the local Goodwill type stores for 50 cents to $1.50 pretty regular.

[moparstuart]

wow very nice and oh the car looks good too   

[tan top]

wow very nice and oh the car looks good too   

... ..

[mauve66]

what car???

[maxwellwedge]

There's a car there?

[lloyd3]

As most of you have probably already heard before, nostalgia is simply defined by "whatever was cool when you were sixteen".  When I was sixteen, 8-track players were all there was for "portable" music.  Just about every abandoned field and woodlot teen-aged keg party I ever attended then was using an automobile-based 8-track player to provide sound for the event.  I won't even begin to say that they were a good means of sound-reproduction, but it beat AM radio hands-down in rural NW Pennsylvania, and it was Stereo (sort-of).  It certainly has a sound all of it's own, with fade-outs, clicks, and some very strange wobbles at times.

My car has a factory original AM/8-track in the dash, exactly like my very first car (a bondo-filled '70 Limelight Roadrunner).  After I'd had the '68 car for a few years, I thought it would be neat to try to replace all of the tapes I had either had or had enjoyed during that era of my life (which I was mostly able to do on EBay).  Most of them have been (by necessity) repaired and/or reconditioned over the years, but still play fairly well.  These old Mopars have a unique ability to exactly recreate the sights, sounds, smells, and G-forces of my somewhat misspent youth.   When you add back-in the exact music you were listening to in the '70s & '80s (even with all of the little quirks) the effect is even better, at least for me.  When I'm rolling down a remote, secondary road, awash in all of the sounds, smells, and sensations of a big V-8 swilling Premium gas and the Outlaws fire up "Green Grass and High Tides" on the 8-track, I'm still shocked by how good (familiar?) it actually sounds, and also by how much comes back to me at that moment.   

These aren't really cars, they're time machines!