Are you speaking of a Ford CD PLAYER or a Ford CD RADIO? The Ford CD Player (base part number -19B160-) is a slave unit that MUST be used with a "CD compatible" Ford Premium Cassette radio. The Ford "CD Player" does not have a tuner, and will not work without the Premium Cassette radio to drive it. A Ford "CD Radio" (base part number -18C815-) DOES have a tuner, and does not require a second DIN hole, but it still requires the Ford Premium Sound amplifier. There is no second DIN opening in the dash of an early Explorer to install the DIN CD Player unit into. I did one once, installing the CD player where the ash-tray originally went, in the lower part of the dash, under the climate controls. There was no "finish panel" available to make it look "right", and the mounting had to be fabricated.
The factory Ford CD Radios for a Mustang, Taurus, Ranger, or Contour can be used in an Explorer. If you use the Taurus version, you will lose the clock function.
If you already have the Premium Cassette radio (base part number -19B165-), this will be a simple swap. All of the Ford CD radios prior to 1997 use an external amp. The Ford Premium Cassette radio uses the same amp, so all you would need to do is unplug the Premium Cassette, and plug-in the Premium CD.
If you do NOT have the factory Premium Cassette, but have the factory "Midline Cassette" radio (base part number -19B132-), then the swap would be much more complicated. The CD radio will not work without the external amp. The amp and all of the associated wiring from the "Premium Sound" system would have to be installed (the amp and wiring from a Mustang would be simplest, as they are located in the console right below the radio).
regards,
cobrajeff
