I'd been contemplating fixing the left side cutout of my Bose system for a long time, but the task always seemed too daunting and difficult. I finally got around to doing it yesterday (took me several hours) and it works! This write-up on housecor's site is great and easy to follow.

http://shiftice.com/Maxima_02-03_Bos...dio_repair.pdf


It's so nice to have the sound quality of CDs back. (I'd been using an FM transmitter and iPod for the last year) The difference is huge and I'd highly recommend this to anyone who can't decide whether or not to attempt it. You just need regular, medium, and super-small phillips screwdrivers, a flat screwdriver, needle-nose pliers, some basic soldering skills for one part of taking it apart, and some patience. This was definitely worth doing and much easier than I thought it would be. Just wanted to promote this amazing write-up and encourage those of you who are contemplating doing it (as I was) to do it! Happy to answer any questions...

 

I read that you don't even need to do the solder part.

And there is a new ribbon cable you can buy as well. Someone recently bought one and I'm also waiting to hear their results.

http://forums.maxima.org/5th-generat...highlight=bose

 

Yeah, apparently you can buy a new ribbon cable, but there's no point IMO. From the look of it, there's easily enough bared metal to make a completely new and solid connection. And it's working great for me. And no, you don't technically have to de-solder those 2 spots... I didn't actually do that... I more just heated it up with a soldering iron so that I could bend the metal pieces more easily and so that the PCB board would slide over the metal pieces with solder on them. It could be difficult otherwise. Plus, it makes for a more solid/factory connection if you re-solder the points after you're done. But yeah, no big deal.

 

Thanks. Sounds promising. Hope to tackle it this weekend as well as refinishing my headlights with this:

http://www.amazon.com/3M-Headlight-L.../dp/B001AIZ5HY

there is a great youtube video of it, but I cannot get the link for youtube is blocked at work.