Hitachi TRK-8100 repair

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stragulus

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Sep 4, 2014
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Hi,

I'm new to this forum. I've recently acquired a few boomboxes off ebay as hobby repair projects. Right now I'm working on a small Hitachi TRK-8100. I got it in a non-working state, but that was simply a matter of reconnecting a loose connection, so that was an easy fix. Furthermore all switched and pots were dirty and there was no sound in the left speaker. Fixed that by deoxit'ing all the switches and pots. Rebelted the cassette deck so that also works again. It's a really nice box for its size.

The next challenge is more difficult. The function selector knob uses a long plastic relay to operate a switch further away on the main pcb. There's a plastic lever here that appears to be broken, and looks like it was supposed to pivot at the location where it was attached to the pcb. However, the way it is mounted onto the pcb makes it appear as if it couldn't rotate at all at this point. Which is weird, considering how it seems to me it should be working. See attached pictures.

There's another pivoting selector for the radio frequency bands, and that one is mounted quite differently. You slide the lever over a fixed axis, and it can freely rotate here as one would expect. That one is in the second to last picture.

I'm at a loss how I would restore the function selector lever. If I superglue both of the plastic bits together, it won't be able to pivot and it will snap off. How did this thing ever work!? Any tips on how to fix this would be greatly appreciated.
 

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stragulus

Member (SA)
Sep 4, 2014
171
10
18
48
New York
I guess I should have been prepared to do some mechanical work on that, although I have zero tools for it. I guess what could work is drilling a hole through both the bottom and top piece and put in a longer screw. The bottom piece is mounted to the pcb with a short screw, so I'd just deepen that hole. Should work right?

I wonder if it originally worked simply because of torsion in the plastic piece, which seems like a really bad design to me. No wonder it would eventually snap off.
 

stragulus

Member (SA)
Sep 4, 2014
171
10
18
48
New York
Yeah, this model appears to be pretty rare. I'll get a drill and give it a go, can't see why it wouldn't work.
 

stragulus

Member (SA)
Sep 4, 2014
171
10
18
48
New York
Finally got a dremel and fixed it by drilling a small hole through both parts and screwing it to the pcb from below. Works perfectly!
 
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