As mentioned in my introduction I have been bitten by the refurb/restore bug. Prompted mainly by buying a Marantz Sr 5600 online. It looked lovely and all the functions seemed to work on the video that the seller sent. Well, when it arrived all the problems unseen on a video exposed themselves, rude that they were. I stripped it and got to work. It survived the ordeal and that gave me confidence (not that all the components I've worked on came out as well) to "clean up" some more old equipment. When it got to the search for a turntable to complete my setup, I decided to refurbish one of three that I had purchased impulsively. All three were in bad shape. I also decided to begin documenting my refurbs.
To begin, a Pioneer PL-930 fully automatic TT. It arrived with only one channel playing and a mad buzz. It also looked like something sticky, perhaps a cold drink (bear) had been spilled on it. The cover was full of scratches but no cracks fortunately, both hinges were fine. Most of the screws, including those on the headshell were corroded. The start/stop button was corroded badly.
When I opened the case the liquid spill was evident all over, the mechanism was gummed up and the metal base was rusted where the liquid had pooled.
When I stripped the TT the cause for only one channel working was obvious, loose wire.
Clean up began with a couple of baths in isopropyl alcohol, mild dish washing liquid mix and a soft paint brush. This got rid of all the old, caked grease and sticky residue.
I sanded the base down and resprayed it. Then I polished the dust cover on a buffing wheel with a cutting paste. Using a buffing wheel must be done with extreme caution, slow and patient. If the friction gets too much and heat build up occurs it will crack or "melt" the prespex. After buffing I polished with a clean soft "loose" cotton wheel.
I resoldered all the tonearm wires and cleaned op the interconnect contacts, I replaced the existing cartridge with an Audio Technica VM95C. The oem was a MC cartridge.
To be continued .......
To begin, a Pioneer PL-930 fully automatic TT. It arrived with only one channel playing and a mad buzz. It also looked like something sticky, perhaps a cold drink (bear) had been spilled on it. The cover was full of scratches but no cracks fortunately, both hinges were fine. Most of the screws, including those on the headshell were corroded. The start/stop button was corroded badly.
When I opened the case the liquid spill was evident all over, the mechanism was gummed up and the metal base was rusted where the liquid had pooled.
When I stripped the TT the cause for only one channel working was obvious, loose wire.
Clean up began with a couple of baths in isopropyl alcohol, mild dish washing liquid mix and a soft paint brush. This got rid of all the old, caked grease and sticky residue.
I sanded the base down and resprayed it. Then I polished the dust cover on a buffing wheel with a cutting paste. Using a buffing wheel must be done with extreme caution, slow and patient. If the friction gets too much and heat build up occurs it will crack or "melt" the prespex. After buffing I polished with a clean soft "loose" cotton wheel.
I resoldered all the tonearm wires and cleaned op the interconnect contacts, I replaced the existing cartridge with an Audio Technica VM95C. The oem was a MC cartridge.
To be continued .......
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