Gents,

I am the original owner on this 740 and the radio has finally given up. What are my off the shelf radio options? This is my daily driver and I need to come up with a radio that will fit the console slot without a lot of mods to get it installed.

Thanks

 

Go to a salvage yard and get one out of a wreck.

 

Go to crutchfield.com and use their car selector to see what radios will fit. After you find one that you like, Google it and shop around to see if you can find it cheaper anywhere else.

 

It's really simpler than that. Any modern single DIN head unit will work fine. You simply need to purchase a faceplate adapter kit...either off of eBay or your local BestBuy or whatever. This is a pic of my 84 740T right before I sold it...I had already swapped out the Kenwood for this old Pioneer I had laying around. The black surround is aftermarket adapter. I used the exact same adapter in my 90 740...it's quite simple.

 

I've been told by my radio shop and my Volvo parts guy that Volvo radios are made by Alpine and that if you go with an Alpine unit it's plug n play; no modifications necessary...

 

Yeah, they are but the aftermarket ones have to be wired in... Only another Volvo OEM from the same period will "plug and play".

 

I'll vouch for that. Both my 7's had amplifiers mounted near the steering column with more wiring to compound the issue. Modern head units have more power than the o.e. units generally. In both cases I simply wired around the amps. Also, the 7 series radio wiring makes much more sense than 240's. A simple schematic is all you need. Seems as if for one of them I purchased an adapter kit that was advertised to make it "plug and play". It didn't.