Sure, you can turn it, but its hit or miss if the volume control works. Thanks god for the steering wheel controls. Anyone know of an easy cheap fix?

 

So I decided to tackle this myself since I figured it would be pretty easy. Its one potentiometer, and it was probably just dirty from 13 years of use. Just so we're clear, this worked for me and was super easy, and I make no guarantees. If you jack it up its on you.

You'll need some small jewelers screwdrivers, some small needle nose pliers, a q-tip or two, a very fine abrasive sanding stick or electrical contact cleaner. That's it.

Basically, take the radio out, and remove two screws to get the face plate off. Remove the volume ****. Make sure to take the face plate off facing the floor, otherwise you'll have buttons all over the damned place. You might need to pry the edges very gently while you pull the face plate off.

You'll be left staring at the front circuit board, to which the power/volume button/pot is attached. The four highlighted tabs need to be straightened out to remove the front of the switch




Once they are straight, wiggle the front of the switch until it comes off. Pay mind to the internal gear, to make sure it doesn't pop off and fly away:



This is what the gear/contact wheel looks like:



If you look closely at it, you'll see traces of where dirt has built up causing the intermittent problem of the **** turning but not adjusting the volume:



This contact wheel needs to be cleaned. I started with a q-tip to get the little bit of dialectric grease off, then used a very fine narrow sanding stick to gently remove all traces of the dirt and grime to end up with a clean contact wheel:




I didn't put any new dielectric grease on it and I didn't clean the really fine contacts in the green part of the pot, which you can see a couple of photos up. The grease I can live without, and the really fine contact points probably could have used a swipe with the sanding stick, but I don't think it made much of a difference. You can add those two steps if you wish.

Reassembly is merely putting the contact wheel back in place in the switch cover, just make sure the detent bar is pushed up so that the wheel can set in the cover all the way. I used a toothpick to push it out of the way and the wheel set right in place. If you can turn the **** and feel the detents engaging, you got it.

Now just place the switch back on the other half, detent bar towards the bottom, and push till its all the way down. Then just bend the tabs back to hold the whole thing together and you should again be able to push/turn the button/**** to make sure everything works so far.

The only thing left to do is reassemble the face place of the radio and put it back in your Rover. Plug all the cables and antennas back in and power it up so you can hear the volume go up and down like it should when you turn the ****.

Done! Hope this helps someone down the road. Good luck!

 

thank you, great walk through. If turned slowly, mine will sometimes lower the volume instead of raise (or the other way around). Although, I almost always use the control on the wheel instead.

 

That's exactly what mine would do. Either that or not affect the volume at all when you turned it.

 

im assuming you know because you’ve had yours apart my volume **** the coating came off and looks really horrible so I got a new ****..if it ever gets here to switch it out with...do I have to take the faceplate off to just switch the **** part? Have the same head unit but I can’t find where the screws are to take the face plate off

 

Screws are on the side of the chassis. You have to pull the head unit out an inch or two at least.