I did a lot of searches on this on here and google, and really only found fixes for the A/C issue. I decided to go upon this completely blind and on my own. I have a moderate amount of electronics knowledge. I can build a hell of a gaming PC, budget or not, but car radio's are something I've never dealt with.

Ever since I bought the car, it always made a whirring noise when I started, like a motor spinning up, but not doing anything. No grinding, no jamming noises, just the motor.

I tore EVERYTHING apart. The radio came out of the bezel, took all the exterior panels off of it, and plugged it in real quick to see what was making noise. Upon plugging it in the motor instantly started up. I could see it spinning a couple gears, but nothing was happening.

Knowing what motor was the issue, I had to dissect the CD player. This required taking the cassette player unit out, then un-twisting the metal bar that holds the CD chassis to the cassette chassis.

After that I had to remove the CD unit from it's chassis. The meant taking pushing the rubber vibration absorber things (whatever they are called) through the cassis. Unscrew the metal covers to do that. except 2 of them are behind a circuit board. This board it SOLDERED onto the chassis. Had to whip out the soldering gun to remove the solder.

After getting the board out of the way, I could push in the last two absorbers and free the CD unit. Finally I could see the gears in the unit.

Turns out that Clarion had a huge design flaw in their gears. There is a white gear that houses a smaller black gear that drives the CD laser arm. if the arm can't move, the cd player freaks out.

What happens is inside the white gear there are plastic posts that hold the black gear in place. over time those wear out, and the black gear grinds them up. This causes the black gear to spin freely. The fix?

SUPER GLUE. seriously, yea. I just dabbed a crapload of super glue and fused the black one with the white one. Put everything back together (about 5 times because I kept forgetting crap lol.) plugged it in and BOOM, it works perfectly! I can load cds, eject them, play them with no issues. Simple little fix that is kind of a PITA to do.


Here's some photo's that might help you. I didnt take a bunch of pics, but taking the unit apart is pretty easy. these just help save some time. And be super careful around ribbon cables.

This is a metal tab that holds the CD chassis to the Cassette chassis


Stupid little gear causing all this trouble


Note the black gear's flat spots, and the worn out area's in the white gear


Here's a vid of the gear spinning (Click on the link, video wont load on this forum)
http://s1073.photobucket.com/user/fr...9dr4v.mp4.html

IT WORKS!

 

Great post. I might have to disassemble one of my donated radios to do a more complete how-to on this.

If only this were the only problem with the CD changers on our cars.

 

Thanks! Yea, I did this in 2 very late and sleepy nights so I didnt think to take a bunch of pictures lol. I'm just glad it was a simple fix, and nothing was really broken. We'll see how long it lasts. The cd changer is a bit noisey, but I honestly dont know if it was before it broke or not. Never had a multi-disc cd player before.

 

Did you have any issues with the cd ejecting? Mine doesn't like to push the cd out all the way and struggles.

 

No it ejects just fine. The motor does have to work a little bit though. I believe clarion didn't use a good enough lubricant on everything, and over time it wears down and parts don't move so easily. This would explain why the gear shredded like it did.

 

sweet! Great job!