My radio no longer functions. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to take it out. The instructions for the later series 3 seems to be a little different than the early cars like my '81.
You can see how far I got in the attached images. From what I can gather I need to take off the retaining nuts on behind the heater control knobs. Unfortunately the only thing that looks likely to be a nut is the two little indents on either side of the knob, trying to turn that with two screw drivers stuck in those two notches produced no results and I'm afraid I may need some sort of special tool. Once that's off several things reference rivets but I'm not really sure what to expect.
As I'm sure many of you have been down this road before, I am hopefully I can get some advice so I'll have a fighting chance of replacing my radio without breaking anything.

 

Those two nuts with the grooves in them *are* what you need to remove… Needlenose pliers have always worked for me, but as I recall, the first time I removed the nuts, they were very tight. Tapping at an angle with a punch may help.

The plastic rivets (you will see two on each side) are simple to remove – they fix two brackets attached to the radio body, to the dash structure. Simply pry or drill them out (don't think they can be re-used, but you could try).

Good luck!

Andrew

 

And be very careful with that silver faceplate. It will distort if roughly handled, never to be flat again !

Cheers
DD

 

Andrew,
The needle nose plyers worked perfectly. I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to get those off with two screwdrivers, it took a minute with the plyers. My radio is out and well on it's way to being replaced.
Probably the fastest turn around on a problem from a forum ever.
Thank you again!

 

I went and reinstalled that faceplate after I got the radio out so it wouldn't get damaged while I find a suitable replacement. Good advice, I really like that faceplate and I doubt I could get another one.