Cars - 97 explorer radio lights

I don't want to sound too negative again, but there are a lot of very
smart people that are on the Internet. Just because one person sell
the information doesn't make them wise. A lot of people (llike
myself) are frustrated enough that the radio displays died, and then
to have someone post answers for a cost - it just bugs me. Some of
the people that I respect the most are those that give you advice for
free. Admit it, most of you have been in some store where you have
asked someone a question and they have helped you - for free. What if
they charged you just because they have the answer and you don't. I
don't think we as a society would go far if everyone charged for what
they know and then kept it to themselves.

Anyway, here is the information that helped me most:

========================
By opening up the radio you will find a narrow display power board
within the left side of the radio (faceplate toward you). This board
has a metal cover soldered to it, with a toroid (wire wound doughnut)
inside on one side, and a bank of surface mount resistors and
capacitors
on the bottom side. One end of the board (SCR heat sink) is screwed to
the heat sink at the back of the radio, the board is secured with 2
metal bend-tabs, and it has a white mini connector on the other end
which connects to the faceplate. Remove the board from the radio.
On the bottom of the board look for surface mount components
R1057/C1071/R1058/C1083/R1064. The colder these resistor/capacitor
chipsets get, the brighter the display. I left the car out in the +5 f
degree weather and the display worked until it warmed up a little.
That
is how I was able to track it down to these temperature sensitive
parts. Freeze-it also helped after I narrowed it down to a few
components.
The fix that worked for me was to re-molten the solder for each end of
these surface mount components. Be very careful if you try this, as a
big soldering iron, or a lot of heat will destroy the components and
board. And don't do this with the radio plugged in. If you're not
comfortable doing this take it to a friend who is. So far this fix has
kept working for a week, I hope it is permanent.
===========================

The part that I had to do was to un-solder and then re-solder the
connections on this board. It really doesn't take long to do. Just
do both steps and it will save you from having to re-do it like I
did.

Good luck

On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 07:02:11 -0500, "Herb Kauhry" >
wrote:

>Well, he was smart enough and motivated enough to dig into the radio and
>figure it out. Just because he also uses the internet doesn't mean he's
>obligate to act as a public charity. You are confused about who is the
>jerk. Ford charging over $200 to fix it, that's being a jerk (you probably
>thought I was going to point a finger at you, didn't you?). The truth is,
>anyone who would possess the tools necessary to make the repair probably has
>the capability to fix it without needing somebody's write up about it.