Symphony II Tinkering (PICS!)

[manhertm]

Well, awhile back I went to have some speakers and an amp hooked up and the installer called to tell me my radio was dead. He said he checked the fuse and everything. At the time I had no reason to question what he said. So I bought a radio on Ebay, afterward I found out that you couldn't just swap our head units. I went to the dealer to get the code but they said I need the vin on the car it was originally in(didnt have it). So I had two radios I couldnt use. Today I decided to take apart my old radio to get some CDs I had stuck in it. I proceed to take it apart and decided to check the fuse on the back....... Yep you guessed it blown fuse. I swapped the good fuse from the other radio I got and of course it worked. Cool, my radio was working again, but the other radio I got was from a 2006 B7, so it was in mint condition and looked brand new. My old radio looks like shit, dare I say its the worst looking unit out there. I was gonna toss the 2007 radio, then I had a brain storm to try and swap the faceplate. Here's how it went

Here are the radios side by side


Everything pretty much matched in the back


My 2002 has black metal and seems to be a little longer in depth behind the dash(about a 1/4 inch)


First take the radio knobs off, they just pop off(easy).


Then unscrew the 2 phillips screws on each side of the faceplate.


Left side with no screws


Now take a look at the anchor points around the radio. There not that hard to loosen , but take note in case the faceplate doesn't come off all the way. (side shot with 1 anchor point)


Shot of 3 anchors points on the top


Now just pull gently, you'll feel some resistance, but keep pulling because its just the circuit connections. Here you can see the 2 connections at the bottom.


Here's a pic of what's behind the actual faceplate. You can see the plastic circuit strip behind, where the radio display would be. This could come in handy because I know some people say they have dead pixels. A good cleaning might solve this.( The strip on my old radio was dusty and looks like it had a smudge, probably from the assembler)


I just repeated this on the other radio to swap the faceplates. I put it all back together in reverse then installed the radio in the dash. My code was still good, so the code is probably stored in the unit and not the faceplate.

[eddier]

wow nice job, pretty clever