I have a radio like this that I want to use in my truck.


I want to add a factory looking aux input jack to the front. I have a pretty good knowledge of electronics, and have done quite a few searches looking for the way it is wired, to find nothing. I am pretty sure the 1/8" aux input on the front is just soldered in the line of the outputs from the radio to the amp, but how could I find a wiring diagram of the radio to trace it out? When nothing is plugged in, does the radio play, but plugging in the 1/8 plug from your mp3 player interrupts that input and plays your music. Or does it work on a totally different circuit? Is there any other way to tap inputs inside the deck? It looks like the back has had the antenna plug desoldered on several of these factory radios with aux inputs added, so they have to come apart for the modification. Has anyone bought one of these to reverse-engineer it? What did you find out inside? They retrofit these aux jacks to all kinds of different factory radios, so it must not be too difficult... I am going to take it apart tomorrow and see what I can see. Any advice?

 

actually I never seeing a ford radio like that in my life. typically the aux plug is on a seperate harness from the radio harness. it's a PIA to add aux to a non aux ford radio when there are so many other alternatives

 

google my friend

Diy aux input on a factory radio - PerformanceTrucks.net Forums

 

Adding an auxilary input into a Ford stereo

Or if you have the in dash 6 disc mp3 player you can do this:
MP3 player "input" for car stereo.

And just make a "Silent CD" (a track with no sound on it) the second link has a silent attachment at the bottom of the page.

 

I realize this thread hasn't been touched in years, but I couldn't actually find a 100% confirmation that this worked anywhere else on the 'net.

Here goes:

I had this radio in my 2001 7.3l 350:


Yanked it out, removed the "top cover" (two torx screws on back, some clips on side,)

Then removed the cd changer assy, 2 torx screws from top (on head sink), 2 more on the side of the unit.

Carefully disconnect the ribbon cable from the bottom of the CD assembly, lift out.

Flip the CD assy over, then near where you disconnected the ribbon cable, locate the two testpoints labeled LCH and RCH.



Carefully tag on a 3.5mm stereo audio cable to the testpoints. I soldered the braid to the chassis for ground. Also used a zip-tie to secure the cable.





Reassemble.

I ran the cable out the back of the radio through the "circle hole".

Used Audacity to generate a 70 minute silent audio file:

1. Open Audacity, new stereo 44.1 file.
2. From "generate", "silence".
3. Export to WAV

burn to CD (used Maxell "Music" CD's, burning at 4x)

Slapped it back in the truck, works great!!

Happy hacking!

 

An update even on an old thread such as this is always welcome I'm sure. I found it interesting mostly because I do a lot of my own electronic repair and refits.

Question is why generate and use a silent WAV file?

 

So the overall idea with this mod is that you're faking the head unit into taking an aux input.

Playing any CD will make the head unit pipe whatever audio comes from the CD deck to the truck's speakers. We're hijacking that "whatever audio" wire and connecting the aux input to it. Without playing some CD, the head unit doesn't pay attention to that wire from the CD deck.

You could put in any regular ol' music CD and hit play, then plug in an iPod and hit play there, and both would play at the same time. I'm pretty ADHD, but not so ADHD that I think I could listen to two songs AT THE SAME TIME.

Make a CD that instead of music has silence, then the only thing you hear when you start playing your iPod is in fact your iPod.

 

Yes I can see how that would be a challenge!

Makes sense----thanks for the clarification!

 

Once again a few years have gone by before this thread was updated. Well here is the update. The thread is gold. User esm2 posted the perfect instructions and pictures for me to apply to a 2004 F150 Supercrew. Same idea - take out the Head Unit, easily remove the top cover (2 torx screws), remove the CD unit (4 torx screws) and carefully undo the ribbon cable. Turn CD unit up side down, look near the ribbon cable connector for 3 small test points on which an aux cable can be soldered. There were labels on the PCB that clearly identified the left, right and ground. Burned a 'silence' CD and good to go, sounds perfect.

I routed my cable down through the cigarette lighter with just enough slack for iPhone to sit up top.

 

resurrecting again. I just did this mod to a 2005 Expedition with rear DVD. It works great. I didn't have to make a blank CD. Any disk will work. The AUX will play and the noise from the cd player will mute when you plug into the aux cable. When I unplug my ipod from the auxillary cable the cd changer will resume output.

 

Wonderful information! I have the same radio out of a 2003 ford excursion. My CD changer had a jam and the only way I found to fix it was remove and destroy to get my cds out. The radio works fine without the cd changer in it. So I am running the radio without the cd unit installed.

I would like this aux unit soldered into my unit but the r and l inputs you soldered to are on the cd changer unit (that I have already discarded). I have the ribbon wire still dangling in the unit. Could someone trace the r and l inputs on the ribbon wire so I could solder right to the ribbon wire or main board in the unit instead? I have no labels on the main board that show r and l inputs.

I think with the cd changer unit removed applying the aux plug is a no brainer solution since my cd changer unit is void.

Any advice, suggestions, pictures or help would be greatly appreciated.

 

It sounds like you soldered your mod to some input leads of the aux cable that goes to the DVD player, but either way, would it be possible to show a picture of or describe where you soldered when using the rear DVD player?

 

Great thread...but before I send Crutchfield all my money maybe someone can answer my question.
I just got this truck and my factory unit has an "AUX" button on the front, but there are no 1/8" jacks I can find anywhere on the unit or the dash. My 2011 E350 has a jack in the dash for the AUX input. I just want to use a bluetooth receiver in the jack and transmit from my phone.
Anybody know where the jack might be located? Or did they just equip the unit with an AUX button and no way to plug anything into it? Thanks in advance!

 

The AUX input is on the back of the radio, and is not the little 3/16" type like you would use for headphones, but a squarish type of connector if you have a Ford OEM radio. If you read my post on "mp3 radio mod" you will see pictures of how I wired my mp3 decoder in parallel with the existing AUX input.

 

https://youtu.be/4C1eF2sogVo
was just tired of digging everywhere to find what was solder points on motherboard so figured I would make a video for the next escape driver who is curious on how to do it
instead of wasting money on new aftermarket headunit why not integrate new tech but still keep factory look