TRIUMPH! My $2.24 GE 3-5286A is now 100% working!

sunshine_ax

Member (SA)
I bought this old GE boombox (made in 1981) for $2.24. When I got it nothing worked and it was very dirty. I cleaned it good and polished the plastic "glass" surfaces to perfection. Some lights would come on, but there was no sound. I cleaned all of the switches and pots and then I got sound!!! The tape deck didn't work, the radio played, but no matter what I did, the whole thing would fizzle out to silent in 3.5 minutes! I kept cleaning the switches and pots thinking that it was just gunking up again. I had heard that this happened. However, no matter what, it still fizzled out in 3.5 minutes. I was puzzled, but determined. I cleaned the deck and put new belts on it and it started working... for 3.5 minutes. The fizzling to silence was so consistent that I started thinking that it must be a capacitor. I had gotten the idea that the capacitor was heating up and then dying. I had seen a video online where someone had to change their capacitors, so I had capacitors on my mind.

Fast Forward to tonight when I got my sister-in-law who worked on radar systems in the Air Force, to come over and help me swap out this one big capacitor on the power supply board. I learned a lot about this process in a matter of 10 minutes! Got the old one out and the new one in. Plugged everything in and turned it on. After 10 minutes of flawless playing...

...TRIUMPH!

I'm so thrilled about this. I love this little boombox. I love the looks and it sounds really good. It's also got metal loops to put on a carry strap!

This was a fun project and I learned a lot.

I still need some switches and a battery box cover, but I'll keep an eye out for those parts.

UPDATE: I found a good leather purse strap at the Thrift Store that already has clips at the end. It connected to the Boombox and was the perfect length. What do you think?
 

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Fatdog

Well-Known Member
Staff member
May 3, 2009
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Man, you are on fire with these restorations. :w00t: The cassette door plastic used by G.E. has that slightly green tint to it (like an old Coca-Cola glass bottle) and it is so sexy. Nice job!
 

Ken

Member (SA)
Aug 30, 2009
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Bremerton, WA, USA
This is an outstanding resto job! It's beautiful...the strap loops, knurled door thumbscrews, and the cassette keys and key guard chrome all shine! The door glass is so clear you can see the detail of the writing on the cassette in the second pic.
I agree, the loudness switch combined with the stereo accent switch make for a rich sound...an under-rated boomer, to be sure. I love mine.
I still need two record level knobs...if I ever find a parts box, knobs and a battery cover will be coming your way for sure. It would be the least I could do in return for that awesome manual I scored from you this morning! Thanks again!
 

sunshine_ax

Member (SA)
Yeah, I LOVE the green plastic glass. It’s really a nice touch from an era that’s passing. I’m going to make a leather strap for it since that’s what other radio straps were made of in the 70s.

Ken, thanks for that offer and I’m so happy you could use that manual. Yeah, I was so lucky that this place online had it and it is such a great reprint job that I’m floored by its quality. It’s not original, but it might as well be. I used an app called iScanner to shoot the photos. It gave me a 3 day free trial before it wanted to charge $3.99 a WEEK! So I did two manuals and canceled my trial ;)

We had so much fun last night taking turns finding our favorite songs on the internet to stream over to the boom. I recorded them on some tapes that I had from back in the 90s when I last bought recordable tapes. I have a stack of 8 of them. You could just buy them in any store right up next to the register as an impulse buy. Those days are gone.

Thanks everybody for the kind words. I’m going to work on my M70 mod next that I got from SuperDuper!