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I bought the Acura CQ-JH0712Z off a 1998 Acura CL 2.3 Base in the salvage yard. The unit had problems from day one: the outputs all had severe static and the internal amplifier was slow to warm up, it would start at a whisper and then slowly the volume would rise on its own no matter what I did with the volume knob. I bought a Honda replacement from Craigslist and it had no power problems, but the knob had a bad wiper: I would turn the knob to raise the volume and it go down; I had to turn the knob slowly in order to get it to function. So I had a bad Acura radio with a good Acura knob and a bad Honda knob on a good Honda radio.
Tools
Instructions
Step 1. Remove the radio.
Step 2. Using the Phillips head screw driver, unscrew the face by removing the two Face Screws on the sides of the CD Player.
Step 3. Using the straight-slot screw driver, Pry the face off by starting on one side and working your way around the CD Player. Use gentle pressure and complete the prying in several steps; i.e. do not pry the left side off all at once, give it a little nudge and then keep moving around.
Step 4.1. Remove the knob.
Step 4.2. Unscrew the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) from the face.
Step 4.3. Remove the PCB from the face by both pushing on the A.SEL/RPT button and the black face tab behind the A.SEL/RPT button so that the PCB will clear the tap shown below.
The knob looks like many of the 12mm Rotary Encoder Switches I have been finding on the internet for ~$2 each but I don't know enough about the one in the CD Player to find an appropriate replacement. The switch knob is soldered into the PCB, and cannot be simply unplugged, the solder must be sucked off before a new switch knob can be soldered in place. I swapped the entire face PCB from the Acura CD Player, knob and all. Works perfectly.
Reassembly
Step 5. Perform Step 4 in reverse.
Step 6. Push the face back onto the CD Player, it will snap in place.
Step 7. Perform step 2 in reverse.
Step 8. Perform step 1 in reverse.
