Golborne Vintage Radio

I'm feeling quite pleased myself, as I've cured a problem with one of my two jukeboxes,  which I've been putting off resolving.

Of the four electric motors, the one that turns the record carousel was running slow. This would frequently activate one of the three trip switches that protect different parts of the machine, this one's the mechanical. 
It was just a question of pushing in the re-set button when it stopped, but it might trip out again at any time. I was concerned that perhaps one day it wouldn't trip out and I'd be facing an ever bigger problem.

This motor is a complete pain to access.



The front of the machine has to be taken off to get some light in there.

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A question of removing the small panel at the bottom of the back of the machine, then lying full length on my side and with a spinner, to feel around for the three bolts that secure the motor to the chassis. These are impossible to see.




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There's no way you could get any sort of conventional spanner on many of the bolts in a jukebox, so a set of "spinners" in your toolbox is essential.


This is all you can see of the motor.


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They were very well, built nearly fifty years ago, as they were subjected to heavy use.

But now they are made of "unobtainium."


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This is the usual problem with slow running motors. The commutator gets scored over decades by dirt getting between it and the brushes.


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This can be hard to remove. "But there's a way."

I put the spindle in my electric drill and locked that in the vice on my workbench.

Then I wound a thin strip of emery paper lengthways around half a pencil. Turned on the drill and held the pencil against the commutator as it turned. A few changes of paper and all scoring was removed in a couple of minutes.  I scored the insulating dividers between the segments of the commutator with the tip of a Stanley knife. They must not be proud of them.

A bit of "a lube job" and it was ready to go back in (after I had tested it!).

Putting it back was a bigger pain than taking it out. Particularly when you are eighty-four!

A question of sticking the bolts on the end of the spinner with some Blue-tac, (they still fell off a few times).

Anyway, job done!

The nearest jukebox servicing company is about 50 miles away. They would have wanted to take it back to their workshop and raise it to a "workable height." I believe this would have cost me well over £200.  
In the end, it cost me 59p for the sheet of emery paper.


Quite pleased with my work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgENyDZ5ags

Well done Sean

Thanks for an interesting posting and video. I always fancied one but we never had the room, probably a good things as you point out what a beast they are to work on.

A few months ago I replaced the taps in the bathroom (bath, bidet, basin).  I'm actually just a bit older than you and laying on my back, and working the tools, took a few days and some Ibuprofen to get over it  

Gary

(21-07-2024, 07:45 AM)Radio Fixer Wrote: [ -> ]Well done Sean

Thanks for an interesting posting and video. I always fancied one but we never had the room, probably a good things as you point out what a beast they are to work on.

A few months ago I replaced the taps in the bathroom (bath, bidet, basin).  I'm actually just a bit older than you and laying on my back, and working the tools, took a few days and some Ibuprofen to get over it  

Gary

 
We're of an age when unless you did it yourself, it didn't get done, as you couldn't afford to "get a man in."
So few young people now have any DIY skills.

But I still do a few things. I changed the toilet a couple of weeks ago.

I'm reasonably fit, I played squash for a club team in the North West Counties Leagues until I was fifty. Only gave up due to recurring tennis elbow. Retired at 58 and took up golf and joined a club. Still play three times a week, "weather permitting."

What did we do before they invented ibuprofen?

Well I have lumbago, inherited from my grandfather.

His lumbago was treated by my grandmother with a warmed smoothing iron & brown paper.

I wonder if it worked.

"What did we do before they invented ibuprofen?" Beer! And the walk to and from the pub loosened the joints too.

I self-medicate.

Before I play golf, I have a black coffee, no sugar and two paracetamol in the pro shop.

As is often the case, you can solve one problem and then find you've caused another.

I did.

A few days after sorting out the carousel motor, I noticed that some selections weren't being cancelled after playing and when the jukebox then had played any selections in positions before it on the carousel, it would play that one again.

I noticed the "hammer" that returned the pin was missing it.

I also noticed there was nearly half an inch of play in the carousel.
This meant when it stopped in any position, it would either lean by that much, due to the collective weight of the records, either one way or the other, as 45s can be of slightly different weight depending on the thickness or density of the vinyl. So around a quarter of the records in one section of the carousel had this problem.
This would affect where the hammers stopped on the wobble plate.

So I slackened off the motor's bolts and pushed it forward a couple of millimetres to better engage the sprocket. This removed the play in the carousel, I was then able to centre the gripper arm using the adjustment screw and then it was working perfectly again.

"You'd expect something that's only 47 years old, to not give you that much trouble."

For those unfamiliar with vinyl jukeboxes, I made this video over a decade ago, which shows how they work. (you'll be relieved that I neither appear nor speak in it. The information is in the write-up below the video).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=morLkJDxWyg&t=44s




As they say, the proof of the pudding.

I'd watched the film Mannequin on TV a week ago. It's a remake of the Ava Gardner film, "One Touch of Venus" I've got that on a DVD.

I've seen Mannequin several times and have always liked it. This same recording, which was used in the film, was used to accompany clips of scenes from the film on a YouTube video.

A combination of a good tune and a good film has meant that video has received over forty-five million hits. Or maybe that it was just because Kim Cattrall was at her best?
She was 68 this year. doesn't time fly?

I saw there was a copy of the 45rpm record on eBay which was quite cheap. So I said to myself, "What the heck!" and bought it. "It'll stay in this jukebox until it becomes my least favourite," then changed for something else. But that might be for some time.

The ticking noise at the beginning of the video is the clock on the wall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2iCkF69EG8