I bought a 1997 Pathy that has a decent stock audio system, but the CD player was stuck – either ate CD’s and held them captive or got the “jggg–jggg-jggg” sound for hours until the CD was ejected.
After some tinkering (and prayer) found a solution that worked for me – this is no guarantee for everyone but here it is:
1. Remove the 2 screws at the base of the facia plate for the Radio/HVAC console and pop it off.
2. Remove the radio
3. With a hex/star toolkit handy, remove the lid of the CD player – the goal is to have the lid off while testing the unit live.
4. The “jggg-jggg-jggg” sound is from the chrome arm that comes back and is looking for stop that is now out of specification – now your task is to find the right size item that helps the CD be accepted and attempted to play. After a few different bits, I found the one shown to get things working. To finally hear the CD insert, clink, lock, drop and play was incredible. Of course it had to be Disco – that was the first working sound in my truck in about 2 years.
View full size picture here
5. What worked for me was a large paperclip – it had the right thickness to make things work. I then retained it with wire to prevent issues.
View full size picture here
6. Test again, like 10 times – eject, insert, play – is it still working?
7. Put on the lid – test a couple times – still working? Proceed.
8. Install in dash – still working? If so you are done. Congratulations! Put all the wires and doo-dads in their place, put on facia and enjoy your old-new CD player.
