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Success! Fixed my CD changer

This is my 2002 Explorer 4-door with the OEM 6-CD changer.

Ford sent out a postcard warning owners not to insert homemade CDs with paper labels. I forgot to tell my son, he inserted a CD with a crappy paper label, and sure enough, it jammed. "CD ERROR" is a message I grew to hate.

No response on this newsgroup to my plea for help, so I went to my local Ford dealer. His response was "We pull the unit out of the dash and ship it to a repair shop in New York. Cost is about $1000, and the success rate isn't good."

Not having a spare $1000 for this, I decided to try it myself. Good news! I fixed it. No special tools, total elapsed time about 30 minutes - if I had known what I was doing, it would have been less than

20 minutes. The hardest part was getting the unit out of the dash. Special thanks to JaWise on this board for getting me through that.

If you experience this problem, drop me a line and we'll chat.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Jeffrey
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Bill, I have the same problem. How did you get the unit out? Thanks for your help!

Reply to
Surflongboards02

Bill, I have the same problem- stuck magazine. How do you get the unit out? Thanks.

Reply to
Surflongboards02

First, my unit does not have a "magazine" - it just feeds individual discs in/out. If yours does, it may be different.

Now, the first step (and thanks to JaWise for this) is to remove the BIG trim piece from the dash. This is the big trim piece that surrounds not only the radio but the A/C controls, air outlets, 4WD controls, etc. There is a good description of this at

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this site describes the use of a small metal tool and a lot of padding. I used a PLASTIC 2" putty knife from Home Depot, unpadded, and started at the middle of the right edge - worked fine. Once you pop that big trim piece off, the rest is pretty straightforward.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Jeffrey

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