Hey all!

The last couple of month when driving I had only one tune and that was the sound of my lovely engine (Rawr!)

My old A9500R radio showed symptoms for about a year, at the end the radio had to wakeup for about 15 minutes before actual music came through the speakers. Alot of hissing and banging noises when it was cold.

I tried some hacks, fixed some corroded contact here and there. That propbably gave the radio an extra 2 or 3 year lifespan. I got fedup with the idea I couldnt fix it anymore and had to search for a new radio.

Over the past 5 yrs I own this car, and scrolling through the Jaguar forums i noticed many people changed their radio's with fancy looking ones. But i felt this was not for me because I really like the old classic interior (way better then x308) and I really want to keep that fresh look.

So unfortunately for me all the radios out there that do work and are for sale are worth more then gold. I was not going to pay 150 Euros ~average for this piece of junk.

A couple of days ago I went to a salvage / scrap yard to pickup a maf sensor for my car. When inspecting the vehicle i noticed alot of nice spare stuff i could use. So i picked up a couple of relais, plastic **** and stuff. Small things that break really easy and I could use on my own car.
But i also removed the complete center console, including ofcourse the clock and the radio. I know the radio need a code to operate. I didnt had that code, so I called a friend of mine who works at a local Jag dealer and gave him the #VIN and he found the code without any problem.

Back to testing the radio! Radio works great with the code, the LCD is completely blurred out and the volume knob isnt working that great.
I opened both radios and did a complete swap of the frontend.

I have an excellent working radio now and I'm very happy with that.






Auxilary hack on the right A9500R

 

And a finished job! Excellent!

Next project the clock! ;-)

 

Hey all!

So after about a week of testing this "new" unit i came across some flaws.

The CD changer sometimes stopped working and showing the "NOT CONT" message on the display.

Also I noticed when driving at night that the led lighting under the lcd display did not light up.

I read an article a while ago about an smd not proper soldered on the board.
Over time the resistance of this pad becomes to large and the handshake is lost with the cd changer.

I pulled out the radio again and opened its guts to have a closer look.
The smd (showed on the picture) was not soldered on one side. I applied some soldier on it, measured the connection with my volt meter, no resistance and good connection.

I also changed the led behind the display, i got one of the leds from the spare unit. You could also order new ones, but hey this is fine.

While at it i cleaned all the contacts with some cleaner and was sure there was no corrosion left on any of the contact pins.











CD changer is working nicely now for a couple of days, so i assume this is fixed. Also the led is working great as seen here in the picture.

Bye!

 

I just picked up my second 1996 xj6 (first one I was rear ended after 2 months of ownership and it was totaled). This one also has a radio that was non functioing at the time of purchase but then worked perfectly after a couple of hours on the way home. Next morning it turned on to one station but then locked up again with no controls working. So now i have a radio that turns on every morning but no on off or volume controls.

I really would like to keep the original radio for looks but this series from Alpine seems to be absolute crap. I have the premium system with subwoofer. I have read that the radios can be repaired at a cost of around $250.00

Does anyone on this forum know what causes these problems (not the cd problem), is it dirty contacts on the switches-knobs or is it solder connections on the boards? I am surprised that someone with an electronics background has not figured this out yet because there are a lot of really smart people on this forum.

Most mechanical or electronic problems are caused by the same weak link over and over again,it would be great to find out what it is in these radios. The repair shops for these radios seem to know and as the radios are not completely dead but very erratic in there operation it would be great if we could fix them at home.

 

Hi Scotlad, yes I think you are right. The radios are a complete junk and are just bad quality. Cracked soldier joints from heat and age (expanding and shrinking) Also outting parts like amps, cracked lcd's etc. are a common problem.

Sometimes a good reflow works sometimes it doesnt, but worth trying out if you want to keep that fresh look!

I'd say give it a chance, pull it out and open it up. We are here to help you on your quest, so if you have any questions just ask them and w'll try to answer them!

Be sure to have that radio code before plugging out your radio.

 

[QUOTE=Scotlad;1530162]I just picked up my second 1996 xj6 (first one I was rear ended after 2 months of ownership and it was totaled). This one also has a radio that was non functioing at the time of purchase but then worked perfectly after a couple of hours on the way home. Next morning it turned on to one station but then locked up again with no controls working. So now i have a radio that turns on every morning but no on off or volume controls.

Try pressing the tape eject button hard and repeatedly (doesn't matter if there is a tape in the player) The radio will usually start functioning normally for a while after doing this. When the radio wouldn't turn on it was essentially having the same problem as the controls were frozen. Apparently this is a fairly common problem with these radios. I was going to fix mine but these radios are 15 bucks at the junkyard, so I just got another one. I assume it has something to do with the tape sensor.