Random radio display appearances on 98 Ford Explorer.

It's a poor design that Ford, as usual, stuck with for quite a few years, and would not admit to. A couple resistors on the display power supply board dissipate much more heat than that board can take (and there is no ventillation to speak of). It creates all sorts of problems, including solder junctions that literally desolder themselves over time. Some (including myself) had success with resoldering them, but it does not last long. Apparently, newer boards work better. See the message just below yours in the thread for a possible source of those.

My radio started acting up the same way. I went to

and got the "Save My Sanity" swap board and it fixed my problem (and my wife's). I got detailed instructions with step by step pictures on the process to replace the board and did not have to use any special tools except for the removal tools (made out of stiff hangers...see the details at the web site...actually taking the radio out of the dash was the hardest part) and a philips screw driver and a pair of needle nose pliers. No soldering required. I've been enjoying the radio display now for almost a year now since doing the swap. Very enjoyable to see the time and station.

If you are familiar with a soldering iron, you could see if you can fix it yourself.

I posted pictures after fixing a friends radio.

Billy

Well I tried the free information I found on this annoying problem with the fading display on my Explorer. I didn't have any luck on my own repair attempts. I decided to buck up and do the swap program at

and I'm happy to report that I have a working radio display again! It's just great to see the clock again, not to mention the radio station and not having to do the repeated random seeking to find my radio stations.

... or, as others had reported here before, you can buy a brand new display power supply board from Pioneer for about the same price. Comes in a kit with two other boards (which are not needed to fix this problem). The part number is HWM5469. Don't know if the sharememory guy has some significant improvement to the obviously flawed design. If so, he might still be the better option, because the Pioneer part is essentially identical to the old one. The only difference is that the power resistors are mounted on long leads and hang in the air, instead of sitting on the board. This hopefully reduces the overheating of nearby components and prevents the cracked solder joints. Nevertheless, there is still too much heat being dissipated in that tiny volume.

.be cautious of ordering the new boards from Pioneer. I originally went that way and it didn?t even last 6 months. I tried to get Pioneer to replace it and that was fruitless...they seem reluctant to warranty these boards. I decided to go with the shareamemory.com/radio swap program and I?m just past the year mark on it and still going strong with a bright display. I compared the board I got from shareamemory.com/radio with the new one from Pioneer and it has a lot more robust soldering on the board...you can clearly see the difference, some components looked different too. I also asked six different ways about the warranty with shareamemory.com/radio and they have a 1 year warranty (every time and way I asked about it, their answer came back the same), so that was comforting.