A friend of mine through Landcruisers identified the part as an inductor. He said heavy components like it should be secured to prevent the soldered connections from breaking like this. I removed the component from the board and made a small jumper out of stranded wire. After scraping off some of the green insulating coating, I reinstalled the inductor. One pole is soldered to the back of the board and the other pole is now connected, via the jumper, to the copper trace I exposed on the front of the board.
Result… the Am/Fm/CD/MP3 player is working well.
This radio, out of a 2004 Ford (Escape?) was manufactured in a way that it could outlive the vehicle. However, none of the heavier components soldered on the circuit boards were secured by anything more than the solder.
It’s a sign of the way things are made now… save a few pennies per unit at the cost of longevity. Unfortunately, most people these days would simply toss it rather than repair it. I got lucky this time and was able to fix it for the cost of a scrap of wire and a small piece of solder.
Well also a newer soldering iron since the cheap one I bought off Amazon fell apart after using it 3-4 times. It was cheap garbage and I should have bought a better one at that time… live and learn. Now I’m buying local, and supporting out local economy. No more Amazon… as convenient as it was.
