2nd Gen Non-Engine/Transmission Weird Radio Problem

[Dell (WA)]

Guys... ... ... . unlike Vaughn, I haven't washed my truck. (grin)



Started up my carport parked 95 3/4T auto, little after 1pm and overhead temp read 50 deg, dry weather, turned on my standard factory Dodge tape player AM radio going down driveway, noticed clock was about 7 minutes slow, reset it.



Drove about 15-20 minutes down the road listening to the news talk show and all of a sudden all I got was a LOUD STATIC like radio station quit transmittin'... ... . EXCEPT I couldn't turn the NOISE off. Couldn't change the volume. Couldn't tune in any station, AM or FM. NO control, NO DISPLAY, 'nuttin.



So I drive about another 5 minutes down the road, lookin' for a good place to pull off and check the doorjamb fuses and all of a sudden the radio starts talkin' again. And the clock was slow again.



Anybody got any guesses? I did pull the radio doorjamb fuse and re-installed it after I got home. I've got 40 yrs of radio electronics background but I don't want to re-invent the radio if someone has previous experience and would like to share it with me, would be much appreciated... ... ... . TIA, Dell (WA)

 

[C. Harlan]

time to go with an aftermarket unit!! Alpine, pioneer, or Kenwood is the nicer way to go! as soon as I drove my truck off the lot, I did a complete stereo install that same evening. 1 head unit, 1 ten disc changer, 1 detachable face EQ, 2 amps, 2 front door speakers, 2 quad door speakers, two 12" speakers behind the seats. . it makes all the world of difference!



-Chris-

 

[Andy Redmond]

One of my customers had the same prob. I must have removed that radio three or four times before the service center finally found it. They found some bad soldering and a bad ground after testing it after it had been in a freezer for an hour or so.



I haven't heard from him since on that issue so the service center must have nailed it.



Factory Service in Dallas, TX (plano/miller rd. ). I don't have their number handy. Try the yellow pages on Yahoo etc.



Good luck,

Andy

 

[othomas3]

Sounds like the same thing that happened to my factory radio. It the outages became more frequent and lasted longer until it eventually stopped working.

I replaced it with another factory radio from E-bay and it did the same thing.

The third replacement (also from E-bay) works fine.

 

[Matt42]

Sounds sort of like a bad or intermittent ground, as suggested above. There are two grounds to focus on. (Three, if you include the ground that goes with the multi-wire plug. )



The first grounds the radio chassis to the truck itself. Some radios have what looks like a 1/4 inch tab that you can slide a wire connector on. Do so, and run the wire to the metal part of the dash frame. That can sometimes make up for a bad solder job on the "factory" ground.



The second grounds the antenna plug to the radio housing. That's the outer part of the coaxial plug that comes from the antenna. Sometimes, the connector or the socket, or both become corroded. Cleaning them with fine emery paper will usually fix the problem, but be sure to clean up the dust! If you don't, all sorts of bizarre electronic mayhem can ensue.



Another possibility, mentioned above, is a badly soldered ground. Anyone who has a bad Dodge radio they'd like to give away, well, I'll give it a home.



I had a problem like that with a Gremlin, and it turned out to be a ground. Keep in mind though, that the Gremlin's radio was plain vanilla AM, and didn't have any of those fancy LED things. Shux, they weren't even available thirty years ago.