Hi,

I have a 2001 Pathfinder with the Bose audio.

The 6-disc CD went belly up, and by all accounts is a nightmare to try
and replace.

I bought an aftermarket head unit, only to find out that you have to
purchase a whole bunch of other stuff along with it in order to use the
existing speakers and amplifiers (this is apparently the case for any
aftermarket unit, not just the one that I purchased).

Being stubborn, I instead opened up the Bose radio/cassette deck unit,
which was still working and is separate from the CD changer, and made a
"slight modification":

Internal to the Bose radio/cassette deck, there are two main modules:
the motherboard (FM radio, amplifiers) and the casette player. I
removed the casette player and cut the Left and Right audio circuit
board trace outputs from that module. After the cut, I soldered on two
coaxial wires, each consisting of the signal wire plus a ground wire
pair. I grounded the outside of the coax to a nearby screw to make the
ground connection. The other end of the coax was connected to the new
aftermarket head unit line-level output.

So, when I want to play something through the new head unit, I just
have to make sure and put a cassette in the existing Bose radio/casette
deck (I chucked the #%@# 6-disc). The cassette does not play,
obviously, but needs to be there since another stupid feature of the
Bose system is that the main radio/cassette unit won't let you select
an input type unless the unit is actually there and working (it uses
serial comms to verify this, so was not worth trying to spoof). The
new aftermarket head unit volume serves to control the line level going
to the Bose unit, so adjust for least distortion overall and leave it
there.

So I got CD back in my Pathy for just the cost of the $100 deck and get
to keep using the existing amplifier, speaker and steering wheel
mounted controls.

Now I'll see if there is a minor interruption as the casette switches
from side 1 to side 2...

B

B wrote:
That's awesome! I've always like Bose car stereos and wanted a way to
incoporate aftermaket audio into an existing system. This is a great,
in-expensive way to do it.

By the way, your aftermarket head unit may have 2 line level outputs.
You used the one that should connect to a power amplifier. If you used
the other one which does not change volume with the volume control on
the aftermarket unit, then you could have the volume control on your
bose unit controlling everything.

CD

CD