This project of adding an auxiliary input jack to my factory car radio took way too long to complete. I got a bit lazy after I failed the first couple of times, but it finally worked this fourth time! Break it and learn, huh?
I’m basically piggy-backing the factoy-installed radio/cd player in my 2000 Corolla. This is not a how-to guide, but rather, it provides supplemental photos to instructions written by others.
The first time I hacked my car stereo, it half worked… The right channel worked, but the left channel was flaky. “No prob,” I thought. “Just a loose connection.”
I took it out a second time, but that only resulted in my losing my radio reception. I also had no vocals when I plugged in my mp3 player, so I successfully disabled my radio AND I failed to get the aux input jack to work.
I finally got around to taking the radio out a third time 6 months later (so I had poor radio reception for 6 months!). I thought that there might have been a loose antenna connection, but it turns out that I had completely forgotten to plug the antenna back in! I then resoldered all of my audio cable connections, but I STILL wasn’t getting any vocals! There’s a short circuit somewhere….
This fourth and final time, I bought a better stereo audio cable and cleaned up my solder connections, and that FINALLY did the trick! Now I can hook up my mp3 player to my car stereo system!
Useful guides created by others:
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Supplemental photos for your viewing pleasure:
