Heres a question for the automotive stereo buff

[sadalius]

I have a 2005 Chevy Cobalt. Factory CD player. Front loader type. Exhibits symptoms of not wanting to eject CD's. Suspect dirty load roller. Now for my question. How would one go about cleaning the load roller without taking the head unit apart or jacking anything else up? I've had some thoughts on a home made cleaner using an old CD and some cotton material attached to it, but I don't know if my load roller comes down on the CD from the top, up from the bottom, or both. And, I don't know how I would prevent the device from being fully loaded into the player and possibly getting jammed inside. Also not sure about what kind of cleaner to use, I obviously don't want to put something in there that will possibly short out my player, probably regular isopropyl alcohol in a very small amount or something. I'm sure there is probably an easy way to do it, but I'm not the most creative individual in this particular situation. Just for the record, the dealer wants to just replace the head unit instead of checking the load roller.

Thanks for any input!!

[CoFree]

we have people all the time come in the shop asking us to work on there cd player(car cd player that is)
There is just no way to work in them without taking them apart.
If you make your home made thing it will be a tight fit.

My thought.
get a used one from a junk yard and put it in.The salvage yard here will even give you a warranty on a part you get from them.
If it dont work you can bring it back and try another one

[sadalius]

There is a problem with that CoFree. The cars security system, driver information center and all that jazz is ran from the head unit. I can't just put in another one because the cars computer would have to be programmed with that head units serial number before it would work or even allow the car to start. Bastards..... The dealer wants $400 for the head unit plus one hour labor to reprogram the MCU to accept the new head unit. Even if any of the local "parts" places around here had a stereo like mine, I'd still have to pay for the stereo, and then pay to have it programmed to my car. They kinda have me by the balls with this car. If I even went with a third party head unit, like a good quality Pioneer, Clarion or the likes, I would have to do one of two things, either take the car to the dealer and have the security system and driver information center disabled or use an adapter that costs like $120 bucks so the drivers information center would still work. So I'm kinda leaning towards figuring out how to clean a piece of rubber without jacking anything else up

I think I may have figured it out though. I took part of my lunch and went out to the car armed with an old junk CD and a can of ammonia free window cleaner. I lightly sprayed the top and bottom about half way back on the disk and wiped off the excess until a thin film of window cleaner was left. Turned the car on, inserted the cd till the loader grabbed. Held onto the cd tightly so the player wouldn't take the disk out of my hand and load it into the player. It rolled easily on the disk for about 5 seconds, then reversed direction to eject the disk. I did this 5 or 6 times. Then I let it set for about 10 minutes to dry. Inserted a regular CD, let it load. It played the first track, then I ejected it. To my surprise, it ejected with no fuss. Tried a couple other disks and they ejected too. What I'm afraid of though, is any junk that was accumulated on the roller that the window cleaner loosened up, where did that go? I don't like the idea that it maybe went down inside the player and maybe could get on the lens, so I'll be tinkering with something else sometime or another, I just have to sit down and think about it though.

[lilrevuk]

lol, you do a lot of thinking

[sadalius]

Yeah, sometimes I do, sometimes I just can't. The darn thing started not ejecting again on me so it left me no choice. I did a search on ebay and found one like mine. Then I went out and undertook to take the head unit out. I found that it wasn't that difficult. Seems my previous automobile had left me scared from putting in a stereo. So when I saw that getting the old one out and putting a new one in wasn't so bad, I bought the one I was looking at on ebay, after I contacted the seller and made sure that everything that I needed to give the dealer to reprogram it so it would work in my car came with it.

All together, I'll be getting a new head unit (only this one is a 6 disk changer) and getting it reprogrammed for about 2/3 the cost of buying the head unit from the dealer. Its got a 100 day gaurantee with it too. So I don't think that was too bad. I'm still going to keep the old head unit and tinker around with it some, unless the dealer will give me something off the reprogram for the old one as a core or something, although I doubt it cause I'm not buying the head unit from them.

[CoFree]

good move there man.
after reading your post
that would drive me nut all that work just to change the radio
crap what a pain,