Restoration of my Technics SL-Q33

[Record Player]

Congratulations on this Saket.

Someday I hope I dare myself to do the same . Your restoration thread now converts to be a Knowledge Base Article now.

Looking forward to the pics.

 

[Saket]

Perfect job, awaiting the pics....now you're into the secret, with a little bit of effort, patience and with a systematic approach, restoration is never as difficult as it seems and is great fun!!

Thank you Reuben. I appreciate your suggestions that you gave before the start of the process. I had those in my mind running all through. Glad things came up well. Also, I cannot deny that somewhere all your restorations had ignited the fuel in me

Congratulations on this Saket.

Someday I hope I dare myself to do the same . Your restoration thread now converts to be a Knowledge Base Article now.

Looking forward to the pics.

Hey RP,

Don't know about the knowledge base, but now when I look back at the last few days, they were fun, and a lot to learn.

In fact, another HMV Stereomaster 1010 awaits a restoration now

Thanks,
Saket

 

[Saket]

Fixing the Tone arm

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Tone arm assembling:

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Tone arm wiring:

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Wired:

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Old Headshell & Cartridge:
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The Original feet: Sent by Hiten Bhai

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The original head shell:Sent by Hiten Bhai

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Back in action:

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[reubensm]

my, looks lovely, especially those OEM feet!!

 

[peace_sells]

Brilliant job with the restoration! Now finally you're a pro! wish I'll be able to do it someday..awesome pictures by the way!

 

[Saket]

my, looks lovely, especially those OEM feet!!

Thanks Reuben. You know whom I thank for the feet.

Brilliant job with the restoration! Now finally you're a pro! wish I'll be able to do it someday..awesome pictures by the way!

Thanks PS,
The back-up in the form of the knowledgeable forum members was re-assuring all this while. BTW, nice handle, reminds me of Megadeth.

Regards,
Saket

 

[peace_sells]

BTW, nice handle, reminds me of Megadeth.

It better remind you of Megadeth I just love that phrase : Peace sells..But Who's Buying? Mustaine always came up with catchy album titles..especially the first 4 albums!

 

[AmitKumar]

this looks fabulous!

your hardwork and dedication has been rewarded well.

Best wishes!

 

[Saket]

How time flies! It's been more than 5 years that I completed this restoration job and yet it feels like it was yesterday!

What brings me here is the thought that I must update this thread since its really a long time since the restore. The turntable has been singing wonderfully all these years, though my listening time has come down. But one frequent problem that I was facing since last 2-3 years was with the auto-function. The tonearm would lift up, and then travel very very slowly to the disc. It would take almost 15-20 secs. This was getting painstakingly slower every passing listening session. I would simply lift it manually and place on the record.

Finally decided last week to get into the cause and hopefully rectify the issue. By this time, I had given up the hopes of the tonearm reaching the disc with the kind of speed it was moving at. I checked the motor speed while operation and that looked normal. Even the plastic gears and cogs were rotating fine. But still the tonearm was hardly moving. This indicated that either the problem was with the rubber pulleys that trigger the movement to the tonearm or the movement of the arm was disrupted either mechanically or due to reduction in slack of tonearm/ cartridge wires.

I checked the wires and there was enough length, so that didn't look like the issue. Finally opened the auto mechanism and took out the 2 rubber pulleys- one was black and the other was grey. I noticed that one of the rubber pulley (grey one) had lost some tension in the pivoting area, which meant that it was not gripping the spindle on which it was mounted. If that was the reason, the spindly would rotate but the pulley wouldn't, since it was not gripping the spindle tightly enough. So, I decided to put a few strands of nylon fibres (cut them from an old cleaning brush) and put those fibers between the spindle and the pivot of the rubber pulley. This helped mounting the pulley tightly on the spindle and bingo. The tonearm was now moving swiftly and gracefully. Auto functions worked like a charm and I was happy to finally find the root cause and correct the same.

Gave a good 2 hour spin to the turntable with my favorite records post that and the player performed flawlessly.

Thanks!

 

[reubensm]

Another related issue common to Technics turntables (especially the more modern ones like the SLBD20) is a very slow drop of the tonearm, to the record surface. This is also coupled with tracking issues and tonearm skating. The fix is very simple, just check the functionality of the tonearm lift bench (which is responsible for lifting the lowering the tonearm, can be seen from above, towards the rear of the tonearm). The oil dampening tends to get sticky over a period of time (and the oil dries up). Skating is due to the bench still holding up the tonearm, a bit. Simple fix - just check the bench oil dampening, clean and re-lubricate.