Allright! Glad to see you finally got it working and I was able to save you a ton of money.

 

I want to thank everybody on this thread for putting this info out. I live in FL and my radio went out to when I change out my single for a six dics and the radio everything with it went out, no AC in FL ahhh for three weeks. I order a used one from the internet and it came in but it didnt work so I called the company and there sent me another one and it didnt work so i said to myself this cant be true so I them look on the RX-8 club page and search for radio problem and look at what I find. I did what you guys said and now I have AC and radio. I dont have display but i'm going to play with it later this week when I have time. Just having AC is whewww words cant explain it. Again thank you

 

Hey folks - I just went through this nightmare (pulled it apart to solder on a jack for an mp3 player) and thought I'd share my humble words of wisdom.

1st - I don't believe that the gold bolt on the passenger side has anything to do any electrical connections. In my car the gold bolt was originally on the bottom, not the top. I moved it around. It didn't matter. I do have an explanation for the recommendation below though.

The culprit for my case in the blank dash / no AC panic was (like someone's above) one of the plugs between the head unit and the dash panel were not properly aligned and did not seat. It took some screwing around but I did get this to seat.

Incidentally, I got it to seat by removing all four bolts holding the head unit "cage" on and was able to manipulate the alignment enough to get it to fit that way.

I suspect that as people loosen and tighten that gold bolt they've been indirectly wiggling those plugs and getting them to seat. While this is great if you luck into it, your experience may be less infuriating if you just take the whole HU and dash panel inside and approach it from the aspect of getting those plugs in place.

I did not take a pic but the plugs/sockets are not hard to spot. They're roughly behind the fan dial and the heater dial. The corresponding pieces are (obviously) on the front of the HU.

Also- save yourself some time and get the whole thing working BEFORE you snap the radio back into place, put the jesus bolt back in, and re-assemble the rest of the trim.

 

Had the same thing happen when I changed the battery (Numax 068 incidentally). So checked fuses......all fine.

Then i came across this thread. Pulled out the radio yesterday and took off the faceplate and reseated it. Put it back in the car and happy days it was working again!!!! Brought it for a long spin and everything seemed to be fine.

Then today I get in the car today. Radio comes on and flickers off again. The display is blacked out again. This keeps happening intermitantly. Comes on then goes off again.

I notice if i disconnent and reconnect it works for a while normally, then the next day the intermitant problems comes back.

Anyone got any ideas. Only started happening when i changed the battery so its a bit weird really.

 

like was said before make sure there is no cracks in the housing that the gold bolts go into... if there is then you it will keep doing it

 

Thanks, I checked the black faceplate and it looked fine. Very annoying problem, cos i thought i had it fixed. Went to a lot of bother to make sure it was seated and delighted when it worked again. I'm at the stage where i just wanna smash the the thing now.

 

thank you for the contributions to this post as this problem happened to me and my stereo and a/c was out for 2 weeks!! and i was ready to spend like 1k going aftermarket!

thanks again!

 

No problem. Glad to help!

 

Hello - I have just joined, specially to say a big thanks to all of you who contributed to this thread. You have saved me upwards of £450 which is what my local Mazda dealer told me it would cost to fit a new front to my stereo to cure this problem.
The display on the centre console just went out, and with it all heating/air controls and the sound system. I hadn't been messing with anything so couldn't see how I could have broken anything, or why something like this should fail for no reason. My RX-8 is just 5 years old.
After I read what you all had to say, I went back to the dealer and told them to check that everything was seated properly so that all the connections were good.
Result!
I'm not criticising the dealer - the young chap who runs the service department is helpful and tries hard, and I got a big thanks for this (plus new respect for women drivers and a free car wash and polish) but he said there was nothing on this problem from Mazda.
From what I found in my online searches it seems to be a common problem.

Anyway, thanks again