Warning: do not let 2 year olds play unsupervised in your VY commodore, as they will take coins out of your arm rest and "post" them into your CD player.
Even worse when the cd player is a 6 disc in-dash stacker. There are a lot of mechanical bits that move; the first time you press "eject" they will fall into the guts and become quite lodged in placed. The player fortunately has the commonsense realise it is jammed stuck and display "CD mech error" before powering down. Good thinking Blaupunkt.
VY Berlina CD player.
Now for a long time car manufacturers have gone to some lengths to make it hard to steal car stereos - there was that dreadful 80's noisy car alarm period, there was sensible 90's PIN number security codes, there was that crazy removable faceplate fad sometime after; however all the while there was the increasing "magic tool required to remove the stereo" business. Yeah, great, someone breaks into your car, smashes up your $1,000 console to pinch a $100 stereo.
Coathanger tool.
Well Holden and Blaupunkt haven't gone too stupid, in fact it is rather easy to fabricate a stereo removal tool. Grab yourself a coathanger, cut off some straight section, you need to make two U shaped "tools". The width of the U's is the vertical distance between the two holes in either side of the player. Allow for at 10cm of legs, bend the last 5mm of the legs up a little bit. Make two, they should look something like the photo but it doesn't need to be super accurate (click on the photo to see a bigger version).
Insert until "click", push outwards,
wobble and pull.
Stick the U's into the holes with the slightly bent tips facing
inwards
, that is, towards the body of the player. You will hear/feel a bit of a click and they won't easily go in any further. Now push the U's outwards on both sides (towards the doors) and pull/wobble to work the cd player out. Initially it will feel pretty tight as you are actually pulling the electrical connections apart. The U tools might slip out, persist, it will come out. Try not to scratch the plastic if the U tools slip out!Once it comes out you'll see it is all very easy and obvious what is going on.
What it is all about.
Click to zoom in on the picture, you can see there are little spring steel "catchers" that normally prevent the player from being removed. The U's push them in, helped by the little bend to ensure they are completely out of the way. The only thing holding it in place is the wiring sockets on the back now.
Notice also that the thing is put together with various sizes of tamper-proof/security screws. You'll need your technician box of "special" screwdriver tips for that one (I got mine from Jaycar for about $AUD15 - no tamper proof fastener will ever be safe from me).
Just wiring socket and aerial,
excellent thinking.
As mentioned, the stereo is located by the wiring socket and the aerial on the back. I think that is a wonderful system; no loom of wires in the way. However, it vastly reduces your ability to go for aftermarket stereos; they would have to be specifically made for Holden, or you would have to chop up your Holden stereo and make your new stereo fit inside (and wonder how to make the steering wheel controls still work).
Fortunately the 6 stacker player is actually pretty good. Alternatively, FM transmitting MP3 players are pretty cheap these days ;)
I'd rather not talk about getting the 5c and 10c piece out, suffice to say you'll likely need to dismantle it somewhat, wind a few cogs to clear mechanical parts out of the way and use a bit of force. You'll need to use your own judgement for that. Mine is working again fine so there is light at the end of the tunnel. Good luck! ;)
database