Ford Ranger MP3 Radio aux Input MOD

Tony Sambuchi

I recently purchased a new cell phone and wanted to play my MP3's in my truck. My truck has the factory radio in it and did not alow me to do this. I once used a FM linker to play my MP3's but found the music quality very poor. This was my solution to the problem.

All that I want is a way to play my MP3's on my radio in my truck. I could go out and purchase a new radio...$80.00 Or I can MOD the one that I have to work with my MP3 player. $6.00 That was simple!

To start I needed to remove the radio from the dash. This requires a tool that you can buy from a Auto Zone. They look like two "U".

Ford Ranger MP3 Radio aux Input MOD

After pulling out the radio. I started to look at the circuit. I found no real way to reverse engineer this to work where I can switch from the radio to MP3 player. I would have to switch from CD player to MP3 player.

switch from CD player to MP3 player

I then found the Right and Left speaker outputs from the CD player with a AA battery and "popping" the speakers..

speaker outputs from the CD player

I would later find that the silk screen on the CD board told me this... Doooou!!!!

silk screen on the CD board

By removing the in-line resistors I was able to find some nice places to pickup my nodes. I ended up replacing the resistors on the relay. (950 Ohm) I chose to use a 12 V DPDT relay to make this route cleaner.

12 V DPDT relay to make this route cleaner

I then needed a place to switch from CD player to MP3 player... I used the cigarette lighter... (don't smoke!)

switch from CD player to MP3 player

While that was setting I made the jumpers to the relay ...

jumpers to the relay

Now I am able to play my MP3 from my Juke phone on my factory radio!

MP3 from my Juke phone on my factory radio

MP3 from phone on radio

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