Magnavox D8443 gear

This is an update on my re-manufactured replacement cassette gear, a common problem with this line of boomboxes. Please note that this is ONLY about the gear which is located under the belt driven flywheel, having helical teeth, and not the other gear which tends to yellow, soften, and break. The other gear is on the side near the tape counter mechanism. I will probably be designing a replacement for that one someday.

After 3+ weeks of testing the re-manufactured part, I'm happy to say it holds up quite well. I'm almost ecstatic over having a fully operational D8443 myself. They seem so boring without the use of the cassette mechanism. The real trick now is to get them mass manufactured (as cheap as possible) so other D8443 owners can theirs working again.

I've ordered a small batch so far, but I don't expect them to arrive until early-to-mid April, after which, I need to ensure the center hole is drilled to the proper size and diameter. I kept the initial batch small, in case they don't mass manufacture as well as I expect. I don't want to lay out a lot of money for potentially defective items.

To keep with the spirit of the forum rules, and because I'm a relatively new member on this forum, I'm not explicitly posting sale details for the gears until my mysterious "minimum number of posts" sales restriction is lifted. However, I do feel I have fulfilled another "spirit" of the forum by contributing to the cause of boombox collecting and preservation by making these gears available for purchase. If/when I do make them available for sale, I will most likely use a "buyer protective" service like eBay or a PayPal shopping cart.

Until then, fellow D8443 owners, please be patient while I wait for delivery of the replacement gears!

Jeff

SUPER!! GREAT!! I'm ready to place my order!!

I was able to get a short run of replacement gears manufactured and made them available for sale.

As mentioned in the auction, you might need to modify the center hole slightly using a drill bit and electric drill to make it work in your boombox.

I posted an eBay auction to handle the sale should you want/need to purchase a replacement gear. They are priced at $11.99 each with free shipping to anywhere in the continental United States.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230965597996

Thanks, and I hope you'll soon have your D8443s running again!

DAMN, this is GREAT...I wonder if I should buy a gear and then look for a radio

Lasonic TRC-920 said:

DAMN, this is GREAT...I wonder if I should buy a gear and then look for a radio

Click to expand...

Thats what I was thinking, too! Sold my 8443 because of the gear problem. Was looking for a gear solution, but I didn't have the connections to have one made!

Awesome Job!

GREAT JOB!! KEEP'EM COMING!! THANKS!! :ebay:

Thanks everybody!

The D8443 was the first boombox I ever owned. When buying the one I have now (my original was LONG since broken) I was hard pressed to find one that didn't have the broken gear. Even if I did find a working one, I'm sure its original gear would eventually break anyway.

I figured, if I wanted the boombox so bad, I'd have to deal with the broken gear somehow. So I tapped all my resources to get a working solution. I've been enjoying mine for over a month on a replacement gear. Still working GREAT!!!

Don't worry, I'll get more gears made and keep a stock of them as long as I'm able. Starting out with a small quantity made it so I'm not stuck with a lot of useless gears if they wouldn't work.

Someone was also kind enough to let me know that this is the same gear that fails in the Philips D8444, being the European clone of the D8443. I'll have verification of that statement after a European buyer gets and installs his replacement gear.

I just posted a video on YouTube which documents the replacement of the broken cassette gear.

It's far from production quality as it's been assembled from several videos I made when narrating the disassembly procedure (just in case I WANTED to make a video someday). But it should explain the process enough for anyone who's not afraid to poke a screwdriver at their D8443.

[youtube]p4YuYZVYIX8[/youtube]

Thanks!
Jeff

Great job Jeff ! My Magnavox still had a working original gear but I replaced it with your gear and it works great.
Now I have to find some good replacement speakers to replace the plastic frame ones in this unit and maybe a nice JBL for the center woofer. That's what I'm talking about. LOL!!

I have to say the gear was really well manufactured and now all Maggy/Philips D8443/44 decks should be able to come back to life with it

I'm certainly glad to hear that the new gear helped refresh the life of your Maggy!

I'm curious if it slipped onto the gear shaft as-is, or did you need to bore out the gear a little more?

As for other upgrades, I do plan on another tech video to document rebuilding a broken volume (etc.) control. Mine has a flaky volume control which I performed a quick fix on to at least get it working to some degree. But it still gets scratchy at lower volumes.

I like this boombox for nostalgic reasons, which is the reason why I got this one with an intent to restore it. As much as i would like to, I don't have much room to collect more boomboxes. Otherwise, I may find myself designing a wider variety of replacement parts.

I may look into putting better speakers in mine someday. If I find a set that sound good, I'll let everybody know what works. As for visual enhancements, I'm more of a "purist" and prefer making things look as stock as possible.

baddboybill said:

I have to say the gear was really well manufactured and now all Maggy/Philips D8443/44 decks should be able to come back to life with it

Click to expand...

Thanks!

That was one of the goals of mine, to make sure there is a means to (or to offer the means to) restore these devices to full operation. Personally, it kind of bugs me to see non working vintage electronics, and I consider it a personal challenge to correct such "issues." :smile:

IMO, the weakest link in all boomboxes are the drivers/speakers. As far as I'm concerned they used no frills. They did not use speakers/drivers from Acoustic Research, klipsh, Boston Acoustics, Polk, JBL, Cerwin Vega, etc. When I open a boombox, that is the one component that I just look at and shake my head. Only IMO.

awesome work man . i don't care what anybody says , i love my d8443 i had one in high school and lots-o-memories with this box , i have 2 of them with a spare set of gears .

I have bought about 8 gears from this vendor and have 1 left. at a time when I had 11 D84 in my garage needing paint rework to gear or speaker reconing.They take better punishment than the original materials. You will not be dissapointed. and it's been 3 years ago.

does anyone have a repair kit available or a place where I can buy some of the gears?. I have decided that between my GE and my Magnavox.. the mag is probably going to be easier to fix.