Helix HX-4636 restoration

As you all know, I like to dig right in when I get a box and if you've been following my "Come on Mr Mailman, Don't Fark Me Over!" thread then you saw that the radio I just purchased was a Helix HX-4636.



And I you have been following Redbenjoe's "want a ' beach beater ' lasonic 931" then you saw us bouncing the idea of a repairable "Working man's radio" around.

With that said, at the very time I was posting in that thread, this deal had come up. PERFECT for what I was looking for.

CHEAP and needing work, COMPLETE and with in the scope of my abilities.

NOPE, not a Lasonic TRC-931, but not far off. It features authentic 931 woofers and tweeters

I got it from Adam (aka THAFUZZ) and he informed me of the work ahead.

And there will be work to do.



As with many of these 30 year old radios, someone has been in there before. In this radio's case, I can only assume is was Jason Voorhees, swinging his chainsaw around. :jason:



Someone has mono'd the amp and split the channel. Have to do some testing to see if the amp chip is cooked.




But the cleaning goes on!

At it again, the fun never ends.

blu_fuz said:

At it again, the fun never ends.

Click to expand...

Nope, it never ends...but there is good news!

Whoever wired this box would have made Norn's head POP!

They had both the POWER wires going to the speakers left to one speaker + then jumpered to the other speaker, right to ground then jumpered to the other, NO capacitors on the tweeters and NOTHING was soldered!

I identified the left and right from the amp, found the proper ground from the amp and wired the left and right correctly!

NEXT: Put capacitors on the tweeters, clean all switches and EQ sliders and do a full test!

More to come!

Man you don't waste any time do you

gsbadbmr said:

Man you don't waste any time do you

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I gotta ROCK man! (yes I do realize I have 40 other radio's to choose from :nugget: )

I do the same thing Chris, dig straight in and get that new box sorted. That Helix does look pretty awesome and should sound really strong with those Lasonic drivers and tweeters. The highs should improve with the capacitors in place. Repairing shitty wiring jobs etc is great fun. With your track record to date, it's inevitable this box will rock long and strong!

Well done and keep up the good work,

James.....

jimmyjimmy19702010 said:

I do the same thing Chris, dig straight in and get that new box sorted. That Helix does look pretty awesome and should sound really strong with those Lasonic drivers and tweeters. The highs should improve with the capacitors in place. Repairing shitty wiring jobs etc is great fun. With your track record to date, it's inevitable this box will rock long and strong!

Well done and keep up the good work,

James.....

Click to expand...

Thanks Jimmy.

It does sound a TON better. Tomorrow I will pull the decks. It looks like the top deck hinges are broken and someone has glued the door shut, so I will have to fab up something there. And the bottom deck doesn't seem to be getting any power.

Pulled the speaker grills off, cleaned, all the wiring tidied up, creaks tracked down and fixed. The handle has some issues with the mounts, fixed them. It's missing 2 more screws on the back case.

It has cleaned up well so far.

Interesting, this is one of only two Helix's I have. BOTH of them had cola spilled inside them! What is it with Cola and Helix's?

I wish I could go back to 1985 and tell Johnny Mullet and Jumal Jheri Curl to "NOT PUT YOUR SODA ON THE HELIX WTF?"



So, once the decks are pulled I can clean more soda from the inside...
You can see the shiny goo of the soda in these pictures

Looking much better inside. These black boxes sure are easy to work on. I started all this 'Boombox maintenance' thing working on Sanyo's and three piece Hitachi's!! :-(. Give me a big one piece any day if you just easy access to the guts.

I'd love to do a D class amp mod on one of these things!

James...

"Johnny Mullet and Jamal Jheri curl"

jimmyjimmy19702010 said:

Looking much better inside. These black boxes sure are easy to work on. I started all this 'Boombox maintenance' thing working on Sanyo's and three piece Hitachi's!! :-(. Give me a big one piece any day if you just easy access to the guts.

I'd love to do a D class amp mod on one of these things!

James...

Click to expand...

Oh man, I was thinking that while working on this. And believe me, I know this thing doesn't even come close to any sort of sound quality of said boxes, but the truth is, when I'm walking down the beach, with the waves ROARING in my ears, I really can't tell if it's my Dolby B or C that is on This radio is all about volume at any cost!

JustCruisin said:

"Johnny Mullet and Jamal Jheri curl"

Click to expand...

Oh, that's how you spell that

Last night I did some rearranging to highlight and showcase the 4636 in the collection.



Did some more polishing last night, I think it's looking pretty good.

Along with the mention deck repairs, one thing I want to do with this box is utilize those cool Tie Fighter / 838 grills for the "Implied" purpose. These look like tweeters, but they are infact microphones. AND even worse, there is only one mic on this radio! So it doesn't even record in stereo and it doesn't use both grills!

I'm going to hog out the holes and fit me some tiny tweeters in there

They are perfectly angled up and should add some spacial dimension to the output. I will also reconfigure the capacitors and separate the Lasonic tweeters from the soon to be added super highs or even replace the Lasonic tweeters with a true mid range speaker if I can find on the right size.

The EQ really adds some bottom end to this radio and there seems to be enough area in the high's to make this all work.

Chris that Helix looks soooo dam FRESH, you did a super good job cleaning that bad boy up, It came out looking PIMP!

Im also guilty of tearin right into em and cleaning em up to the best of my ability. As time goes by I will learn about all the wiring and soldering, and repairing mechanisms. To me there's no better feeling than figuring out the problem and fixing em myself and actually get it working again. I'm always looking for that "minty" score, which is nice don't get me wrong, but all the restos and repairs I see on Boomboxery have given me a whole new motivation! Bring on the beaters!

Congrats! That Helix is a thing of beauty

SLO said:

Chris that Helix looks soooo dam FRESH, you did a super good job cleaning that bad boy up, It came out looking PIMP!

Im also guilty of tearin right into em and cleaning em up to the best of my ability. As time goes by I will learn about all the wiring and soldering, and repairing mechanisms. To me there's no better feeling than figuring out the problem and fixing em myself and actually get it working again. I'm always looking for that "minty" score, which is nice don't get me wrong, but all the restos and repairs I see on Boomboxery have given me a whole new motivation! Bring on the beaters!

Congrats! That Helix is a thing of beauty

Click to expand...

Right on man, I'm glad you come to Boomboxery to see threads like this and it fires you up. There is always something new to learn, be it from a restoration thread or a customization thread.

I think this Helix is going to work out great. It's no shelf queen by any stretch, but it will be a great walk around Blaster! Later today I will have a look at those decks. Yep, it's time to learn decks! I have a feeling I'm going to have all kinds of friends once I figure those out

Someone must have stolen a mic from in there! I'm sure I saw two when I was inside mine but might have imagined it.

Next time I'm in the same house as the box, I'll open her up and check.

Geez you really do dive right in. Looking good man. I cant believe how little there is inside of there. I open up my 931's and close them right back up. Too intimidating with the boards/speakers all soldered together.

Gotta love a shiny black box.

Beosystem10 said:

Someone must have stolen a mic from in there! I'm sure I saw two when I was inside mine but might have imagined it.

Next time I'm in the same house as the box, I'll open her up and check.

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It's absolutely possible there was. This poor radio had some serious surgery / hacking done to it at some point in it's life. I would be interested in knowing.

Also, any chance you could take a picture of this section of the amp board? This is where the speakers are soldered. The yellow and white wires were how the other owner had it set up.

trippy1313 said:

Geez you really do dive right in. Looking good man. I cant believe how little there is inside of there. I open up my 931's and close them right back up. Too intimidating with the boards/speakers all soldered together.

Gotta love a shiny black box.

Click to expand...

Yeah, one of the many flaws of the Lasonic line is they soldered as they assembled to save money. As with most things, when labor is cheaper than materials this is the outcome. That's why you take lots of pictures as you take them apart, label wires with masking tape and a marker and dive in.

Chris, I'm not where the box is at the moment but you shall have that photo some time tomorrow, once I'm able to get to the box.
Are there any other photos you need? Any component values that are worn and hard to read?
Just let me know if there's anything I can do to help with this.

Beosystem10 said:

Chris, I'm not where the box is at the moment but you shall have that photo some time tomorrow, once I'm able to get to the box.
Are there any other photos you need? Any component values that are worn and hard to read?
Just let me know if there's anything I can do to help with this.

Click to expand...

Thank you, Right next to the amp wire connections there are 4 solder joints to the left of the ground. Someone has been at those too. Maybe a close up of those and where they go.

Also the decks and where those wires go. Someone had at this thing with a soldering iron. Don;t know what the hell they were doing.

Thanks so much!