1984 Chrysler AM Radio Repair

"William R. Walsh" wrote in news:3RVbi.162035$_c5.51953@attbi_s22:

Yes, replace that radio with an aftermarket radio and speakers.

Of course not. Only on sci.electronics.repair do they even bother with AM radio.

They were only good for mice food even when they were brand new. Just Google for a replacement speaker.

That's probably what anybody with half a brain would end up doing.

Just put in an aftermarket unit and an Ipod with new speakers.

A speaker that fits perfectly shouldn't be a priority. Just use anything that you can adapt with, say, a piece of Masonite. Car speakers tended to be weird sizes, but you can easily compensate for that; they're electrically about the same.

The buttons and the display are suffering from bad contacts, and these are either easy or not. See if you can find some contact cleaner solution--Radio Shack used to sell theirs in a spray can, and it's not bad, or at least it was fine when I last fixed one of these twenty or so years ago. Carefully remove the cover of the radio and spray the hell out of everything. You may be able to access the other side of the push buttons, and just spray the stuff inside. It won't hurt anything. The display may use some sort of flat connector--not unlike that in a computer--but be careful when unplugging these to clean them.

Someone, somewhere, has an owner's manual for that year's Chrysler cars, but under the worst circumstances you can usually sort of guess your way through the clock-setting procedure. Usually it's done with the radio off, and then you press two buttons simultaneously. On my GM, you push a sort of universal 'display' button, and then use the up/ down tuning controls to set the minute and the hour.

It's worth trying to fix the thing, mainly because it's fun if it works. Good luck. If you don't wish to invest in contact cleaner, try any sort of WD-40 clone. I once used bug spray in an emergency.

M Kinsler

Hi!

Well, *finally*. Thank you for your post, I'm glad to hear from someone who has something to suggest for an actual repair. I do plan to keep this set and put it back in the car should I sell it at some point (which is a possibility). If it could be in passable working order, I'd like to have it that way.

I've got the Radio Shack cleaner, so I'll try your suggestion.

I do. :-) It's a little worn from use and eaten around the corners. However, it is still quite readable and no pages are missing. Chrysler simply doesn't talk about how to set the clock. I guess they think it would be obvious, but so far it has not been.

Precisely, and that's why I am willing to invest the time and effort. And it just might keep yet another something out of the landfill.

William

Who are you going to sell the car to? Somebody on sci.electronics.repair as they are the only ones on this planet that gives a f*ck about AM radio.

On the other hand if you sold it to a normal person he would probably discard it in favor for something with a cd player, or something a little more 2000's.

Well, our local NPR station is an AM station, and an AM car radio is great fun at night because you can get stations from all over the country. AM stations are specializing in interesting stuff. We have one in Nelsonville, OH that plays splendid antique country music, and in many cities there are old-time radio shows, e.g., The Shadow and them. Digital tuners make AM radio quite nice in a car, and an AM car radio is generally far more sensitive than an AM household radio.

M Kinsler

The AM in my car's AM-FM radio works much better now that I've gotten new tires. I'll leave it to my readers here to figure out why.

Hi!

Precisely! And in the case of this radio, it would pick up WWV at the bottom of the (digital) dial. For a factory set, it wasn't bad at all...

I have done as you suggested and cleaned the hell out of the buttons with contact cleaner. And it did bring some improvement in operation. I think that what I'm going to do is use it as a workbench radio in the garage and install a stereo in the car. I am using an old plastic enclosed boom box speaker with the radio now. I haven't made any headway on setting the clock. Perhaps the functionality that once allowed it has failed. In any event, turning on the power to the radio at noon solved the problem. (Never before have I been so soundly defeated by any electronic device.)

I realize that AM programming is terrible in many places, but there are some decent stations broadcasting here as well. One of them does indeed play country music (old stuff--a market that was completely unserved after a low power FM station in the area changed its format to rap, which you could then and can now find at several points on the dial) and I'm glad they do. I'm also hoping they can make it work, as I like to listen to it on my antique radios as well.

I'm going to guess--based on things I've heard discussed on the 'net before--that this might have something to do with grounding or the steel belts in the tire. Am I close?

William

It was indeed static from the tires. I don't think it has anything to do with the steel belts, for both original and replacement tires have those, and they're not grounded. But the conductivity of rubber varies quite widely, even among similar products. I believe my old tires had low conductivity. Therefore, when I'd be on asphalt pavement for a long period, static charge would build up on the car body and discharge to wherever it discharged to, presumably the road, and make lots of electronic noise doing so. On concrete, the static sound would disappear.

I found that on asphalt (British use is 'macadam,' I think) roads whose cracks had been sealed with whatever black compound Ohio uses for the purpose, I found that the signal improved when the car rolled over one of these networks of sealed cracks; presumably the sealer is conductive. On rainy days, the signal was fine except for interference from lightning.

I got so used to compensating for the various signal levels in my daily drives that I couldn't quite figure out what had happened when I replaced the faithful old wheelskins at Wal-mart one day and never got a whisper of road static thereafter.

M Kinsler