My 2004 FLHR was delivered with a dealer-installed road tech radio. We love it when it works. Has anyone else experienced or resolved these light and sound amplifier problems:

radio and aux sound input works
LCD display works
all buttons and controls work EXCEPT for the last month:

1. sound from the speakers cuts in/out and stays off for 5-10+ minutes. It cuts off when first started and after 10-15 minutes it comes on. The headphone jack works at all times and it is not the mute button clicking on/off.

2. the backlight also intermittently turns off -- it is not in any relationship to the sound cutting out.


The radio is past it's 2 year warranty. I did take it in for #2 in the last month of warranty in 12/05. The dealer could not reproduce the problem then -- they removed it and sent it in for service, and I had to pay for the service call since they could not find the problem. The light worked for 2 years after that service. Now it is doing it again.

Other symptoms possibly related:
There was LED/floresent lighting installed 2 years ago that shorted out recently. It was burning plastic of it's voltage convertor when I removed it last week.
I just got S100 cleaner and started using it 1 week before this started -- I've never used a degreaser like this before. There are warning about getting it into the wiring.
The rear taillight bulb was staying on because I broke the hand-switch when changing out the silly control buttons for chrome ones. This was fixed today but it didn't help.
I dissambled the radio last weekend and ran a ground wire directly to the engine from the circuit board's ground -- no help. I did see white residue on the bottom of the case (my guess is that is where S100 and water got through the bottom drains and dried).

Ruled out
- the controls are all connected and 2 years ago I di-electric greased the connectors for the handbar controls.
- the headphones work all the time
- I sprayed down the circuit boards with the MIL-spec strike-force electronics/communicator to rule out any corrosion jumping the gap. didn't hurt it or really seem to help.

Another Harley owner had a similar problem with his dresser's radio and tore down the bike to the frame and checking wire by wire he found one wire that was grounding out.

Does anyone know the address or contact info for the radio -- I'd like to send it directly to the road-tech (clarion?) service center so I don't get dinged for 2 hours of shop time to remove/reinstall?

has anyone else had this problem ?

Does anyone have the radio wiring schematic or know how to get one?

For those of you who installed the radio yourselves, do you remember if there was a separate power lead for the speaker amplifier from the regular circuit board?


Many Thanks,
TD


PS. Merry Christmas


This

 

I am no expert but it sounds like a short. Can you run a jumper to give it power. I would start jumping what I could to elimate certain points.
I have a hoppe fairing on another bike. The cd player did the same thing you described. I really thought it was the player going out because everything else worked normal. I found a bad ground. They-factory had put the ground over the paint. I cleaned the paint off and put the ground wire back on. I haven't had the problem since. Strange part I had the fairing on for over a year before the problem had started.
Perhaps some one may chime in that knows more than I do, but that wouldn't take all the much.

 

Thanks for the input -- I'll try to find the power pin and jump that one... If I can ID the wire and splice it with another that runs to battery/switched that might work too.