The original Bendix AM/FM
radio for a 1965 Thunderbird has to be one of the worst radios ever made, in terms of what you get vs. expectations. The 1966 is better, but still nothing to write home about.
For either one, expect to pay $600-800 for a working one, then be careful -- the IF transformers usually have "Silver mica disease", which will drive you crazy. I can use a lot of bandwidth to explain it, but to you it means reception popping in and out each time you hit a bump. That
radio has 7 of these. There are several other problems, and you'll find that most repair shops won't touch one of these (I'll do an FMR AM/FM Stereo Conversion on these, but not a repair). When totally tuned up and working, FM reception is lousy, and AM doesn't sound nearly as good as the AM Motorola sets.
Also, keep in mind that the 1964, 1965, and 1966 AM/FM radios are all different. The 1964
radio has pushbuttons marked AM and FM. The 1965 and 66 have buttons that flip over to select an AM or an FM station. On the 65, these get really sloppy and don't work well. The 66 design is better. You'll also find that the rear speaker fader wiring is different -- if you get the wrong one, the fader won't work properly. I find this very strange because the 1965-66 AM radios are the same model. Maybe they weren't available with faders? The 1964 had a fader version, but I can't remember seeing a 65/66 with a fader. I could be wrong, but it's hard to believe they wired the cars differently just for an AM/FM
radio.
It's not hard to tell the difference between a 1965 and 66 AM/FM
radio; the 1965 has a single power transistor on the right side, the 1966 has two transistors.
