4th gen radio volume woes

[Firebreather]

I've got the original tape player in my 99 firebird. I dont mind it being tape as Ive got one of those tape adapter gizmos so I can plug it in to my telephone and use that to play music. But what is weird and getting seriously annoying is the volume. You can have it on low volume and medium volume no problem, but as soon as you try and turn it up a bit it goes up but then fades down to zero straight away. Im not trying to get it really loud, it just seems to be the volume level 1 click just below what I would want is stable, but one click higher and it fades down. And thats really annoying when a good song comes on!

Any electrical people got ideas what it could be? I can take it out and pull it all apart and then put it back together again and hope its then fixed. Thats what I used to do when I was fixing exhibits at the science museum which actually worked some of the time!

[MarkJ]

Could be the volume knob that's up the creak but I would think it was caused by overdriving the tape head.

Tape heads are designed to work with the smallest amount of magnetic field (as provided by a cassette). If you've plugged one of those adapters in and have the phone volume too loud you could be overdriving the pre-amp in the stereo. Chances are the stereo has an automatic levelling circuit and it's automatically adjusting the volume to prevent damage.

Try lowering the volume on the phone right down and then adjusting the stereos volume to reach the level you want.

Alternatively, if you still have any cassette tapes kicking around try one of those and see if it still mucks about.

[Firebreather]

Good thinking. I'll try that.

I'm not sure Ive got any tapes though, I havent seen one of them in years

[banker]

is anything actually working in that car

[prodgers69]

Mine does that occasionally, eventually traced the problem to a faulty volume button on steering wheel.

[Firebreather]

Mine does that occasionally, eventually traced the problem to a faulty volume button on steering wheel.

That was the first thing I thought, but it always does it at exactly the same volume every time and a faulty button would be a lot more random and intermittent. But a quick way to isolate that would be to unplug the steering wheel controls from the back of the player so I'll give it a shot anyway.

[Firebreather]

is anything actually working in that car

The seat moves back and forward properly.

[v8driver]

is anything actually working in that car

The seat moves back and forward properly.

Is that with the handle or of it's own accord?

[Firebreather]

This is the head unit I have. The volume is nothing to do with the tape as it goes down with the radio on aswell. So I took it out to unplug what I thought would be the steering wheel controls. But after I unplugged it the steering controls still worked! So what is this plug? Is there a CD changer hidden somewhere which I dont know about? And how would you select CD if there is?

If I change the head unit for a something else, which is pretty likely now, where can you get adapters to go to a normal ISO plug? I'd rather not chop the wires if I dont have to. Would I still be able to keep the steering controls with another head unit?

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[thebandit92]

This looks like its the same as yours http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stor ... yId_165626

[Firebreather]

that does look the same! I'm in shock that halfrauds would have it

I'll have to head down there in bit to see if they have it in store.

[ccckeeper]

Adapters are quite cheap will post a link when I have time to look. Changed mine a while ago. Couldn't find a cheap way of keeping the steering controls though, nothing under £50 anyway. I have the original same as yours but cd version if your interested as mentioned before.

[MarkJ]

Technically you only need the plugs off the adapter anyway. If they are wired differently it doesn't matter as you can rewire the adapter to make it right whilst leaving the car wiring intact.