Stereo/Windows Not Working Randomly While Driving? *FIXED*
09-09-2013, 03:58 PM
#1
Stereo/Windows Not Working Randomly While Driving? *FIXED* Over the last few years, very seldomly I'd be driving and when I'd hit a bump in the road or something the radio would shut off and turn back on instantly. Never thought much of it as it maybe happened once a month. Slowly over time in the last few months I started noticing it happening a little more often, radio would also stay off longer than just blipping off and on. Sometimes it would stay off for a minute or two before I hit another bump in the road, then it would turn back on. I also found that when the radio shut off the windows would not work. I would just kind of tap the top of the dash and it would randomly start working again.
I figured there was just a loose wire behind the stereo. Pulled out the stereo the other night and checked everything out, seemed fine. Stereo randomly shut off in my hands so I had the wife hold the stereo in her hands and I pulled out some of the fuses under the hood. Found one that powered the stereo. It was a big 50A fuse. Noticed that if the stereo was off, when I pulled out the big 50A fuse and put it back in the stereo would start working again. Fuse was fine but I got a new one anyway, also cleaned the connection the where the fuse slid in. Seemed to work but right off the bat it went back to doing the same symptoms again, ugh....
Finally Googled "Radio shutting off while driving ls1tech" and found an old thread with broken links to the pictures (so no pictures available), describing that the bcm under the glove compartment in these cars could have solder problems where cracks developed in a certain solder joint and caused the radio and windows to stop working. Did some more googling and found multiple people having the same problem and fixing it by re-soldering the broken joint. So I went under my glove box (removal of the glove box NOT needed) and unplugged the three harnesses plugged into the bcm. It can be a pain to remove the two smaller harnesses, I needed a tiny screw driver to push in the clips holding them on. Couldn't really figure out how to get the bcm out. Some people in a few threads mentioned it being "clipped" in there somehow. I just kind of pulled and wiggled it a bunch until it popped out. The circuit board is inside of the black case. Open the case and remove the circuit board. Flip it over and check over the solder joints, specifically the ones with fuses on the other side. The solder joint that failed on me was the exact solder joint that failed on the other guy in the other thread. Here are some pics, one of the circuit board with the bad joint circled in red, and another close up pic showing the bad solder joint. You can see the solder joint on the right looks good, the bad one on the left is all cracked and has less solder on it.
Some guys mentioned you can just re-heat the solder on the joint and it will fix the crack but that didn't work for me. The crack wouldn't bond, so I added a little solder (as suggested by a few others). Buttoned it back up and took it out for a drive. IT'S FIXED!!!! YYEESSS!!!!
I figured there was just a loose wire behind the stereo. Pulled out the stereo the other night and checked everything out, seemed fine. Stereo randomly shut off in my hands so I had the wife hold the stereo in her hands and I pulled out some of the fuses under the hood. Found one that powered the stereo. It was a big 50A fuse. Noticed that if the stereo was off, when I pulled out the big 50A fuse and put it back in the stereo would start working again. Fuse was fine but I got a new one anyway, also cleaned the connection the where the fuse slid in. Seemed to work but right off the bat it went back to doing the same symptoms again, ugh....
Finally Googled "Radio shutting off while driving ls1tech" and found an old thread with broken links to the pictures (so no pictures available), describing that the bcm under the glove compartment in these cars could have solder problems where cracks developed in a certain solder joint and caused the radio and windows to stop working. Did some more googling and found multiple people having the same problem and fixing it by re-soldering the broken joint. So I went under my glove box (removal of the glove box NOT needed) and unplugged the three harnesses plugged into the bcm. It can be a pain to remove the two smaller harnesses, I needed a tiny screw driver to push in the clips holding them on. Couldn't really figure out how to get the bcm out. Some people in a few threads mentioned it being "clipped" in there somehow. I just kind of pulled and wiggled it a bunch until it popped out. The circuit board is inside of the black case. Open the case and remove the circuit board. Flip it over and check over the solder joints, specifically the ones with fuses on the other side. The solder joint that failed on me was the exact solder joint that failed on the other guy in the other thread. Here are some pics, one of the circuit board with the bad joint circled in red, and another close up pic showing the bad solder joint. You can see the solder joint on the right looks good, the bad one on the left is all cracked and has less solder on it.
Some guys mentioned you can just re-heat the solder on the joint and it will fix the crack but that didn't work for me. The crack wouldn't bond, so I added a little solder (as suggested by a few others). Buttoned it back up and took it out for a drive. IT'S FIXED!!!! YYEESSS!!!!
