Is there anyone that may have a factory radio laying around? I do not care anything about what features it may or may not but the volume potentiometer has messed up in my 2001.

Or....has anyone tried to fix one with a bad volume ****?

 

I may still have mine, If I do it is an hour away in my moms garage, I will take a look next time I go there, If it is still there it is yours.

 

Nice offer Jim!!

 

I had to replace mine after it ate 6 cd's,it was in sad shape after I dug the cd's out.

 

Way to go Jim ! I'll rep ya when I get out of jail !

 

That would be great...I will rep you regardless just for the offer.

 

Damn! Sorry, I finally tossed mine a couple weeks ago! Had it sittin around for the past 6 months. Sorry!

 

I have fixed a few of these radios that have had bad volume *****. Voluming not turning up, or jumping around....

I take the radio out and blow it out with air then spray with Electrical Contact Cleaner, especially the volume **** control. Not saying it fixes these all the time but generally has been good to me.

I'll look in the garage loft tomorrow. My factory head may still be up there... although I will need some other box to sit up there to collect dust....

 

Word of caution. Eject all CDs from an OEM 6 Disc unit before removal and keep it oriented just as it was in the dash. Doesn't take much to mis-align the disc changing mechanism.

 

I don't miss mine. never was to good. CDs were crazy in it and it just didn't like me !!

 

I have repaired mine 2 times, it was one that I got from my sisters 01 Excursion. It is a 6 disk. The one in my truck was just an AM/FM. I put it in and it would not work, took it apart and found there was a small gear that had slipped off the shaft for the disk rack mechanism. I pushed it back on and thought, I really should glue this, but put it all back together and it worked perfectly.... for about 2 months. Then I went to eject a CD and it slipped the gear off again and gave me the CD ERROR message. I pulled it out after not using it for 6 months (I changed speakers and thought I had blown a circuit in the radio) and opened it up and found the gear was off again. I cleaned off the shaft and put some superglue on it and pushed on the gear, gave it a dab on the end of the gear and it has been working ever since.

You just have to be careful how you take it apart. I took the CDs out of it the first time I took it apart. Yes it says to scrap it if dropped right on the case of the radio. I just figured that was part of the challenge. I know it had been bouncing around in the back of the Ex for about 6 months before they gave it to me. When he gave it to me he threw it to me from across the room. I was like hey, don't do that. He was like why it's broke. That was 2 years ago. It works perfect now.

 

Today on the way to work, I hit the railroad tracks and it turned the volume all the way up and blew me out of the seat. Nothing I did would turn the volume down. However, when I turned the truck off and cranked it back it turned down to what must be the default volume so I was thankful for small favors.

Tonight when I got off work, I decided I would look at it and if I could not fix it, I would not reinstall it so i could preserve what little bit of hearing i had left.

once removed from the truck
There are 3 T10 torx screws that hold the face on the head unit and it will then unclip from the body of the radio. There are then several (8 maybe) T7 screws that hold the circuit board into the face plate. By accident, I actually had a T7 screwdriver as there is not much call for it in what I do. That is where the fun began. My original problem with the switch was that it was loose feeling but worked with a soft hand and after my PAPA used the truck, it was DOA. Of all the papas, he is the papa-iest. He is a great man but he came back with a broken radio, a broken taillight on my flat bed trailer, and a broken winch cable on the same trailer.


Anyway, the radio potentiometer has 2 large lugs that are soldered to hold it into the board and then 5 other smaller legs on it to make the circuit. Two on one side and 3 on the other. My potentiometer had broken completely out of all places. I was able to solder it all back together but was missing one leg of one side. After thinking about it for a minute, I made me a leg out of 4 strands of twisted copper wire. Once soldered into place, it worked pretty good.

ALL said and done it took about 30 minutes to do. 10 minutes of that was cleaning the soldering iron tip where one of the other guys impersonated a mechanic with it. I wished I had taken pictures, but I was just curious at first as to what all was in there and then realized that it would not take much to fix it.

 

I got 2 one from my truck and one from my dads. Just let me know.

EDIT:just read your last post congrats on fixing it, offer is still on the table though.

 

Great to hear you got it fixed. I looked through my pile of spare part boxes and somebody must be riding around with my old head unit. I couldn't find it.

 

I've got one that will fit our trucks from an '04 Ranger-CD DOES NOT WORK-its kinda a plain jane unit but am/fm plays fine-if anyone needs/wants it just pay small shipping.