Radio Display lights Out | Ford Explorer Forums

  • Register Today It's free!

Radio Display lights Out

tommyw

New Member
Joined
February 3, 2006
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
City, State
Scots Valley, CA
Year, Model & Trim Level
'99 XLT
I have a'99 XLT with a am/fm;cd;cassette and 5 disk changer. The radio lights that show the time and station goes out intermitingly. The dealer wants me to buy a new unit ... NO WAY! Anyone suggest a fix? THANKS!
 



Join the Elite Explorers for $20 each year or try it out for $5 a month.

Elite Explorer members see no advertisements, no banner ads, no double underlined links,.
Add an avatar, upload photo attachments, and more!
.





tommyw said:
I have a'99 XLT with a am/fm;cd;cassette and 5 disk changer. The radio lights that show the time and station goes out intermitingly. The dealer wants me to buy a new unit ... NO WAY! Anyone suggest a fix? THANKS!

Tommy do a search for radio and you'll see a lot of info. It's a very common problem, and there are DIY fixes or a guy who will fix it for you for $60.
 






Same Problem?

I have a '01 Sport and I think I have the same problem. My clock/radio display flickers on and off, but only while idiling. When I am accelerating so far I have yet to notice the flickering. Have you heard of any solutions/ diagnoisis? It seems to only affect the clock/radio and not the temperature display on the over head console.
 






Get an aftermarket head unit. The stock Ford ones suck. I had the same problem on my '99 Eddie Bauer. This is perhaps one of the most common problems that exists on Ford products. Ford should have repaired/replaced for free, even out of warranty.
 












My display went out completly and came on a couple times but I just replaced it.Sounds ****ty anyway.
 






www.pacificaudiotech.com

Tell Trevor that the Explorer board sent you. $60 covers the repair and return shipping. He'll send you an e-mail with explicit shipping instructions. I made mince-meat out of mine trying to repair it myself. Unless you have EXCELLENT soldering skills, don't try it yourself. :)

-Joe
 






Found on another site last year--will see if I can find the photos of it & post back :D
The board you want is located under the top cover, along the left side (as you are looking at the front of the unit). It is about an inch wide and as long as the unit is deep. You'll see a shiny metal RF shield (cover) over most of it and the cover has an opening on the top. If you look down at the left front cover of the board (next to the edge of the unit), you'll see a small metal tab that is bent at a 45 deg. angle over the board. This is a hold-down. Bend the tab straight over the little slot in the board. Next, look down in the hole on top of the RF Shield and you'll see another hold-down. Do the same with that one. Last, look at the rear left corner of the unit and you'll see a big heat sink. Look for a copper tab coming up over the top of the case from the back of the board. It is attached to the heat sink with a phillips head screw. Remove the screw. You should now be able to gently lift the small PC board and shield out of the unit. Be carefull with the small blue cable that's plugged into the front edge of the board. You can carefully lift the small white connector out of the socket and now the board is completely free in your hands.

The RF shield is what alot of the folks say they've found to have broken solder joints (as did I), but that is NOT the problem. The problem is the failed solder joints on the small components mounted on the bottom of the board. The crack in the solder is so small you can only see it by looking though a magnifying glass and then it's still hard to see. Take my word for it, they're cracked. Just get some cleaner (alchohol and a toothbrush works great) and scrub the old flux & junk off the components and board first. Then just go around and CAREFULLY resolder as many of them as you can get to. DON"T try to do the IC chip with all the legs on it though, you'll likely mess that up!

If you want to get fancy, you can heat the legs on the large blue resistors that are on top of the board and lift them up away from the board and re-solder. This will help prevent heat transfer to the board. You'll probably find cracked solder joints on the RF shield, so go ahead and resolder those as well.

If you're not real good with a soldering iron, you need to look for info on the web and practice, practice, practice before you try it on the radio! Use a 33 Watt iron or less (33 is good, it has enough capacity to heat quickly, yet won't burn boards too easily).

Once you're done, clean it off once more, plug in the blue cable, place the board back inside, bend the tabs, replace the heat sink screw, cover back on, radio back in and you are looking at your display again!!! WOO-HOO

Good Luck!

~~~~~~
 






I'm very practiced with soldering so I pulled the radio out, took it apart, and attempted to do the repair on this. Once I saw the bottom of the board I thought for sure this would be an easy fix as there were some clearly ruined solder joints visible to the naked eye. I resoldered the whole thing with no luck. I ended up finding a guy online that charges $20 for those same instructions. He has another program as well in which he send you a new board for about $100. If you send yours back he refunds $20 of it. Not a great deal, but I am still giving it a try. As much as I want to go aftermarket, I like the built in sub and steering wheel controls as well as the rear seat control. I'll post an update when the new board arrives.
 






rtbrjason said:
I'm very practiced with soldering so I pulled the radio out, took it apart, and attempted to do the repair on this. Once I saw the bottom of the board I thought for sure this would be an easy fix as there were some clearly ruined solder joints visible to the naked eye. I resoldered the whole thing with no luck. I ended up finding a guy online that charges $20 for those same instructions. He has another program as well in which he send you a new board for about $100. If you send yours back he refunds $20 of it. Not a great deal, but I am still giving it a try. As much as I want to go aftermarket, I like the built in sub and steering wheel controls as well as the rear seat control. I'll post an update when the new board arrives.
I installed an Alpine HU in mine and connected it to the steering wheel controls. It can be done. FYI
 






BBQ_HotDogs said:
I installed an Alpine HU in mine and connected it to the steering wheel controls. It can be done. FYI

Nice, does the volume control as well as the next/mode controls work? What about the rear seat controls? The built in sub?
 






rtbrjason said:
Nice, does the volume control as well as the next/mode controls work? What about the rear seat controls? The built in sub?
All steering wheel controls worked erfect. Did not have time to make the rear ones work due to toll-over. But there is a part available for that also.
 






I got the new board today and after installing it didn't work right away. After going over his instructions I found another area that might need to have solder joints cleaned up on another board. After doing that I was in business. At that point I tried putting the original board back in hoping maybe I could send the new board back for a refund. Unfrotunately that didn't work out. It seemed it was a combination of a bad display power board, and a separate loose solder joint on the back of the display itself. In any case, it works now. This unit has a really nice RDS setup on it too. Glad I didn't have to go aftermarket.
 






Featured Content

Back
Top