I just did this mod yesterday on my '01 am/fm/cd player and it worked out great. I just cut an auxilary cable and soldered the wires directly to the lout1 and rout1 and put the ground to the case, rather than using speaker wire in between. I had to take the ribbon cable off the cd player to find the terminals on mine. I don't have to use a silent disk either, it just overrides the signal. Thanks so much, it's great to be able to do this for free!

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1984 Ford Ranger 4x4 - Singlecab short bed 2.8 V6 4 Speed
2001 Ford Ranger 4x4 - Extended Cab 4.0 V6 5 Speed with headache rack, toolbox, and Scangauge II

Good to hear

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Truck: 2000 Ford Ranger XLT 4.0 4x4 ext cab
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So, I tried this on my 2001 Ranger XLT with a 6 disc changer and it didn't seem to work. Actually I may have fried one of my speakers (or it just finally died I have two on the way from Amazon any how). I had my dad solder the ends of an old pair of headphones to the left/right out, right below the cable that connects the CD player to the main board of the stereo. When I screwed everything back together and put it back in the truck I found my radio still works, but using a silent CD and connecting an ipod I didn't hear anything from the ipod on the speakers...

Does it matter what kind of cable you use, I wonder if maybe I should have used a better quality cable? Or I may need to check the soldering, they were really small points. I may just say screw it and buy a new stereo from Walmart/Best Buy/etc anyway if I can't get this work.

hmm cable shouldn't matter but there is a different way to do it on 6-disc changes that you just have to google for and it is a heck of a lot easier to do

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Truck: 2000 Ford Ranger XLT 4.0 4x4 ext cab
My Build Thread
Mod Ideas
Don't Forget to:
Create a Signature
Show your system

Mods: Brush guard|Front Hitch|Expo Roof Rack|Train Horn|Door/Dash/step/Hood Leds|2" lift|Rear Tow Points|On-Board Air System| 22" & 40" LED bar|and More!

Ah well I ended up getting a new head unit anyway. Much nicer then the stock although not as cheap as this mod.

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2001 Ford Ranger XLT 4.0L V6 Automatic 4WD

Thanks in advance for the help-
I am attempting to tap into the cd L out and R out with a 3.5 (headphone jack) to RCA.

I have striped the RCA side and there are two wires to each-
Red/green
White/green

I am going to solder the red wire to L OUT and the white wire to R Out- and then the two green wires to separate pins listed as GND

just lookin for a quick spot check on my assumptions-
Specifically taping to the GND... In the pics I don't see that
Notch

sounds good to me separate ground locations shouldn't be necessary

and the sound may and or may not be backwards left to right i dont remember exactly which color did what side

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Truck: 2000 Ford Ranger XLT 4.0 4x4 ext cab
My Build Thread
Mod Ideas
Don't Forget to:
Create a Signature
Show your system

Mods: Brush guard|Front Hitch|Expo Roof Rack|Train Horn|Door/Dash/step/Hood Leds|2" lift|Rear Tow Points|On-Board Air System| 22" & 40" LED bar|and More!

Thanks JB

Pretty much! My 97 doesn't even have to correct player, it's from a different year/model.

97 2WD 2.3

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97' Ranger 2.3 2WD Auto

hey guys im new here and just wondering if this will work on my 2003 ranger with the 6 cd autochanger? thanks for any answeres guys

You may want to google a bit I think there is a easier way to do it if you have a cd changer

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Truck: 2000 Ford Ranger XLT 4.0 4x4 ext cab
My Build Thread
Mod Ideas
Don't Forget to:
Create a Signature
Show your system

Mods: Brush guard|Front Hitch|Expo Roof Rack|Train Horn|Door/Dash/step/Hood Leds|2" lift|Rear Tow Points|On-Board Air System| 22" & 40" LED bar|and More!

Yes i have found some articles but none specifically on my radio or even on a ford radio, im still learning with electronics so i would like something that is a little more specific to my radio, have any of you guys done this to an autochanger before? and if so, would you mind giving me the instructions on how you did it? thanks again

i have this radio, and the photos for the mod have been removed. Ill be using a 3.5mm cable. Just need to know where to solder.

So I found a way to add an auxiliary input to my factory radio/cassette player. Originally I was going to tap into the cassette and just pop in a dummy tape when I wanted to play it, but my cassette player doesn't work, and doesn't recognize a tape is inserted, so I can't use that.

I started probing solder points with a chopped up headphone cord, attached to some over the ear headphones. Eventually I found several spots on the board that played music through my headphones. I traced these back to a IC on the circuit board. There are four pins on this IC that play audio, two are lower volume, and two are a bit higher. My guess is that this is a pre amplifier, and one input is the low power radio source, and the other is the higher output that goes to the main amplifier.

I tried tapping into the higher output pins and was able to play music from my phone. There was popping sounds when turning up the volume, and it didn't sound right. Next I tried hooking up to the lower output pins. The output from my phone was way too much for it and it caused a lot of distortion. However I noticed that when the leads we're held in my fingers, it played perfectly (very high resistance). So I'm going to pick up a potentiometer in the morning and hook it up to the lower output pins and see if it works. I also cut the traces on both leads which I will hookup to some switches so I can cut all Audio to from the radio so there is no bleed over.

It seems like this could be done on any of our factory radios, just probe the pins on some of the IC's with it hooked up to headphones or a small speaker while the radio is playing. Once you find the pins, you know where to tap into. You could add a simple headphone jack from radio shack that cuts out the radio when it's plugged in and only plays from you auxiliary source. I'll post up more when I figure it all out.

Here is the IC I used. I marked the pins with a sharpie that I ended up using. I soldered into the back side, and cut the traces with an exact knife on the top side.

i have the same radio but the pictures where to solder were removed please help. R out and L out arent labeled on my radio

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can you please re upload these images?