Radio display jacked up

Trying to understand why my radio display went crazy and now displays a jumble of random lcd characters, changing every couple seconds. No more time or coherent display info. It's the 2001 6-disc unit. It happened after I took the unit out and opened it up to retrieve CDs that wouldn't eject. I've done this before without issue. While the unit was out, and top cover & front removed, I temporarily connected the faceplate and plugged in power to watch the mechanism and try to get it to eject the CDs. This is when the display went berserk. I noticed I didn't put in the rubber insulator sheet that goes b/t the face plate (that plugs into main circuit board) and the front metal body of the radio. Would this have shorted something? If so I'm wondering if the remedy would be a new faceplate. Radio still works fine just bad display. CD Player mechanism now won't even pull in a disc, just a blinking red light. I've read the gears can get moved "out of time" and I think that happened. Oh well, I mainly just want the display to work right. Thanks for any advice.