I tryed like hell to get the stock deck out today...used two u shaped coater hangers and still wont come out...any ideas what i'm doing wrong? i've read all the posts..i've seen the pics..will din tools make it easier?
shouldnt the coat hangers work...
i also started to remove the faux carbon fibre trim piece but it wont come all the way off as the heater controls are attached and i cant get that off either

 

Coat hangers don't work for **** man. You gotta go to your local stereo shop and see if they will hook ya up with some Ford/Mazda factory deck pullers. They are just some cheap *** little galvanized metal pieces bent into a u-shape like the hangers you tired. But the only exception is that the deck pullers have these little barbs at the end of the u's. And these barbs are essential for getting in between the retaining tabs and grebbing on to pull the deck out. All your gonna do with coat hangers is gett pissed off and scratch the **** out of your pretty new dash.

 

Yep, after taking mine out, I don't know how those people removed theirs with coat hangers!!! (or maybe their coat hangers are really tough)

Anyway, I bought some U-shaped pullers as Sweedenhouse mentioned from Walmart for like $4 a pair and it was fairly easy (Just look for Ford pullers). But actually to do it right, you need 2 pairs of those pullers. Since I only bought a pair and was too lazy to drive to Walmart when I got started, so I did one side at a time. I put two pullers on one side, forced the pullers outwards and pulled the radio out a little so that the clips didn't click back and did the other side. Then I put one puller on each side and pulled the damn thing out.

One suggestion is to remove the center plastic cover (for the modular cassette player, i suppose) just pry with a small screwdriver and it pops out easily. This will give you a good place to pull because it's really put in tight and pulling on the pullers alone didn't work.

 

If you would have called me...I could have helped you...

 

thanks guys actually when i got your email greddy my bud came over (he had the pullers) and it came out
still was a bitch but with two of us doing it me pulling the deck and him pushing with the pullers it came out..
once again thanks for the info and help

Lar