So I went to install the CD changer today in my 04 C Coupe, console off, radio out...found the power cord, cd changer powered on no problem. Behind the radio were an exposed Red Fiber cord and an exposed White Fiber Cord...i took the new Orange fiber cord..plugged it into the changer,,,then put the White from the changer to the red from the radio (as i had read in another post to do) and radio said no changer....then reveresed it..still nothing...am I doing something wrong or does the radio have to be programmed to recognize it?

 

u need another Fiber optic cable

 

thanks Brabus...another meaning i need 2 total? or another mening the one i have is no good?

 

sorry no pictures.. but

the 2 FO cables that were initially plugged in to the back of the head unit needs to be split. one has a red end and the other the white end.... red end stays with the HU and the white end goes to the CD changer. now take that extra FO cable you have and complete the loop....

match a white end with the red end FO cable thats plugged into the HU... and match the other end of this extra FO cable (red) with the other FO cable that goes to the back of the cd changer...

hopefully that makes sense ...

should be good to go

-carino

 

Carino - THANK YOU! i did what you sid and it WORKED, it recognized the cd changer played the cd etc...BUT only problem is, when i went to install it into the glove box, the white end from behind the HU didnt have enuff slack to go into the box and make it to the changer...if i go to Benz and pick up nd extra FO cable, can i plug the white end from the HU into one of those clips and extend it with the new FO cable to make it long enuff to reach into the glove box?

 

yup.. you sure can extend it... there are extra FO cables in the trunk... i posted pictures on where to find the extra cables last week......

https://mbworld.org/forums/c-class-w203/192487-installing-mb-fiber-cd-changer-2002-c240.html

good luck

 

yeah i got the FO cable i was using out of the trunk. and i dont see any other free ones in there. there is one other one that is half in the trunk and half in the area with the bose sub labeled TELE (i dont have the phone on this car) and then another one in the bose sub area labeled TELE 2 but that looks to be only the White one and no red...i guess ill have to go to the dealer and shell out the cash for the cable

(on a side note i also noticed in the trunk area what looks to be an empty serial port attached to some wires (looks like a print cable fr a computer) whats that for?

 

one end of the FO cable is going to be white and the other end is going to be red... there are black square like connectors that link or extend the FO wires. there should be enough.

 

Carino - thanks for all your help, did it today and it works great! Took all of 20mins if that,,,and the dealer wanted 4 hrs of labor! HA

thanks again, very helpful!

 

ok... so I got a mc3010 changer off ebay, split the spare FO from the trunk to the back of the HU(red to white and white to red) and still no cd changer recognized. Any suggestions?

 

OK figured it out....

They don't call it a Fiber Optics (FO) loop for no reason! In my 2002 C240 I had no tele or other devices that used the FO. In the trunk there are two FO plugs that have to be looped back to to each other. One of the plugs was the one that was under the trunk floor mat, under the plastic cover. That is the one that I took as the spare to use for the CD changer loop behind the headunit (HU). The other FO plug was behind the right hand trunk side cover. Looks like this was where the tele brain would be mounted. So each has to be looped back to the HU.

I ended up taking the plug behind the right trunk side and clipping the zip ties and pulling it back to the front trunk floor where the "'spare" was. I popped the plug apart to have two loose ends ( a red and a white). Then used a black clip to loop the lines that run to the HU back to each other.

I imagine that the dealer would have gone to each plug in the trunk and pulled the plug apart to get the loose ends and use a black clip on each to complete the loop. Unfortunately at 11:30pm the Stealership is not open. So I could not go buy a spare black clip.

As a side note I used a flashlight to shine in each single FO line to find out where it ran. Light should emit from the other end unless you have a bad FO cable. That is how I ended up diagnosing which FO line went where.

You could also take the right hand trunk plug apart and use it on the Spare FO line that has the two single ends. This would give you a short FO line with plugs on both ends. I did not think it would be long enough to go from the HU to the CD changer. This would make a loop from HU to CD changer only. I did this with the HU and CD changer out to make sure that the CD changer worked. This would only work if the CD changer was the only FO component in your car (no tele or other device).

Hope this helps the next one of you guys/gals that tries to DIY.

Robert