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Old 09-14-2018, 03:20 PM   #1
Orv
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Head unit options for older Fords

I'm curious if anyone has any head unit / receiver options they like for the pre-1992 Econolines. I found lots of info here for the later vans that have a 1.5-DIN opening, but nothing for the older single-DIN vans. (It didn't help that the forum search engine considers "DIN" too short to search on.)


I'd love to have a touchscreen receiver with a backup camera input, but the ones with fold-out screens all seem to open up, not down, and of course the dashboard glareshield would be in the way.


So. Any creative ideas out there?

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Old 09-14-2018, 05:15 PM   #2
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What year is your van?
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Old 09-14-2018, 11:02 PM   #3
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It' a 1990.
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Old 09-14-2018, 11:57 PM   #4
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Looking at photos, I don’t see why a flip up monitor wouldn’t work. You can adjust them to come out further and adjust the angle so they won’t hit anything.
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Old 09-16-2018, 02:03 PM   #5
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Hmm. There’s a couple inches it would have to come out, and the photos I’ve seen all show the monitor as hard up against the front of the head unit, but maybe they just don’t show the range of adjustment? I haven’t been able to find any diagrams showing actual dimensions for any of the fold-out screen units, which is frustrating.
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Old 09-16-2018, 03:39 PM   #6
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I had a flip out pioneer screen in a Subaru and you could adjust all kinds of settings. Go to a car audio place and check out their stuff. You could probably get close just by eyeballing it. Also, my unit allowed full control with the screen closed, so if you weren’t using the back up cam, you could just run your music/phone calls with it shut.
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Old 09-18-2018, 12:59 PM   #7
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It would be nice to be able to use a removable, repurpose-able android tablet as the screen.

Also, worth checking the useability of features/controls when the screen is not deployed. My old state-of-the-art-in-its-day Kenwood head unit with stowable screen, in a 2000 E350, causes some backcountry issues with the screen stowed, possibly due to a confluence of quirks.

I sometimes end up with ear-blasting volume while changing between the three sources (eg, radio, aux/phone input) with no display because:
- I can't tell what source I'm on when toggling thru them,
- the source toggle and the AM/FM frequency Up/Down buttons are about 1/8" apart, so I accidentally hit the wrong button sometimes,
- if I've turned off the radio/source with the volume down, and travelled out of range of the prev-used frequency, and possibly accidentally changed the source away from radio ... then I have to toggle the source AND hit the volume up AND hit a frequency up/down button to try to determine whether I'm on the radio source or not. With no visual indicators of source or volume (with display stowed), I sometimes finally find the radio when it blasts at top volume.

So yes, there's a way and workarounds to avoid the ear-blasting, but it's incredibly inconvenient and time consuming. I imagine there are head units with better visual clues or controls that would make non-display use less cumbersome ...

.... just something to think about.
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Old 09-18-2018, 01:47 PM   #8
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Yeah, good point. I'm still a little on the fence between a unit with a fold-out display, and just getting a regular unit and a separate monitor for the backup cam. It would be nice to be able to play video while parked, though, especially since most of these units have a video-out for an external monitor.


Backup camera placement is something else I need to think about. Only so many places where the spare tire won't block it.
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Old 09-20-2018, 10:02 PM   #9
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i finally found a unit with a fold-out display that actually had a diagram of the space needed. This was the Kenwood KVT-7012BT. It has 1-1/8" between the front of the DIN mounting sleeve and the back of the monitor. I figured out that the projecting part of the dashboard padding would interfere unless the unit were shimmed out at least 1" from the stock location. Just from looking at photos I suspect other units with fold-out screens are similar.

Still weighing my options.
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