CR-905 / CR-906 LCD Backlight Replacement

[Forrest]

I did this repair today on one of my 940s. There does not appear to be a great deal of information on the web about how to replace the bulbs in these radios although there is a great write-up on the double-DIN SC-series radios fitted to 960s and S/V90s.

In fact, the CR-905 is slightly easier because you don’t have to unsolder the cover behind the LCD display. It is made of plastic and just unclips. The procedure is as follows.

1. Remove the radio from the car
2. Remove the top plate. One screw at the back and prise up from the back.
3. Remove the cassette player. Four screws and disconnect the two multi-plugs. Lift out from the back.
4. I removed the front panel and metal bezel around the LCD but this may not be necessary. The panel unclips once the screws holding the plastic surround are removed from the sides and the volume knob is pulled off. The metal bezel around the LCD is held with one small screw.
5. Remove the bottom plate. This comes off in a very similar way to the top but there are two screws at the back.
6. The white plastic cover/reflector can now be unclipped from underneath and lifted away.
7. It is now possible to desolder the two small bulbs from underneath. Their wires are threaded through the plastic holder which you need to reuse. It is also clipped through the board.
8. Thread a new T1 12v 60ma wire-ended bulb carefully through the original plastic base making sure not to cross the wires.
9. Push the wires through the board and clip the holder into position. Solder in with new flux and solder.
10. Reassembly is the reverse of the above. I tested the two new bulbs first by attaching a 12v power source to the wire legs of one bulb before snipping them off. If correctly wired/soldered both bulbs should light.

Although the procedure for the LCD backlight is reasonably straightforward it looks as though it could be a lot more fiddly to replace the bulbs behind the front panel since access to desolder them looks harder. Fortunately mine were all still OK.

Hopefully this will help someone looking for information on how to do this repair in the future. Use at your own risk and be careful. It would be very easy to short something if you weren’t accurate with the solder.