The end of my truck tapes (1st Gen dead OEM replacement)

My 2002 came with the "fancy" system from Toyota - Tapes, CDs and AM/FM.

A while ago it got iffy about playing CDs, but would after a few hours driving. Then it refused to turn on. No fuses seemed to be involved, though there were rumors of a fuse at the radio itself. But I never got in to check that, as it happens. It's kind of a pain to get in there and I reassembled the dash after half disassembling it, then did without a radio for a while.

I finally got irritated and bought a system for it this month - single DIN and a pocket to replace the Double DIN (and lose about 3.5 lbs. That's one heavy old system.) This one has an AUX input. And a USB jack, and CDs, and even MP3 CDs, and RDS FM/AM. But no tapes. I pulled 4 tapes out of the slots in the center armrest console that are designed to hold them. There was no fuse in the back of the OEM radio, by the way (there is on the new system.)

The dash disassembly is by far the worst of this job - all those stupid snap connections that nearly break before they come apart (I got lucky and didn't have any actually break.) 3 screws in the dash plastic, 4 for the radio bracket, out it came.

Yanked the brackets, wired up the harness adapter, filed the pocket so it fit right to the radio and bracket, popped it in and had tunes again (just left the factory speakers, they are plenty good enough for this truck...or my expectations of fidelity on the road.)

Nice upgrade for $70 and a couple of hours.