Pioneer 3121

This deck goes back a long way. I am pretty sure that I bought this in 1970-71 and fitted it to my first car, a 1962 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88. I also remember that I bought an extra car battery and had it mounted in the trunk and the player actually ran off of that. This way it could play for hours while the car was parked and I would still be able to start the car on the main battery. I wired in a 12-volt relay that let the alternator charge that rear battery while the car was running. It worked well.

I am pretty sure that this was moved to my next vehicle, a 1956 Ford F-100 pick up. I built set of speaker boxes, that I still have, that sat behind the bucket seats and sounded pretty good. I think they were 5 or 6" round speakers from Radio Shack. When I went in the army and knew that I'd have to sell that truck I pulled the player and it eventually ended up in my 1970 Ford Maverick in 1975 went I returned to the states. Later, when I switched to cassettes, it went into retirement.

As I mention on the Bowman Astrosonic page, after getting back into the 8-track tape world in 2018, I started thinking that since my 1959 Volvo 544 had a period correct, more of less, Muntz 4/8-track player, then my 1965 Triumph TR4 should as well. I looked through my stash of players and decided that this deck would make a good candidate so I got it out and started giving it a tune-up. That went well until all the sudden some of the Magic Black Smoke emitted from the amplifier board. Oh, no!!! Well, that ended that plan.

Now it sits back on the shelf awaiting a repair to the electronics. That might be a sizable job and I am guessing more than a few components will need replacing. I don't have the service manual for it so I might be working blind. Some might say it's not worth it and I have thought that it might be easier to find another player with mechanical issues and use it as a donor. I'll keep looking around.


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Updated December 2020.

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