Hi Guys,
While money has been a little tight lately, I've been concentrating on getting my better boxes fully operational. While my little AIWA TPR-930 is no bass monster, it does sound decent and it has a fantastic line in and tuner so it was worthwhile and high time to get the deck working. This unit was a local Gumtree.com.au find. It was advertised as in 'fully operational condition' for $30. Upon testing, the seller agreed to a reduced price of $20 due to a dead deck (shock horror).
View attachment 3155
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Fast foward 40 years!
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The TPR-930 is typical of an early to mid seventies AIWA - compact, high density construction and super solid and heavy! This model was top of the tree in stereo portables for AIWA in 1973. Stereo, chrome tape capability, loudness, no sliders, Memory function, a very sensitive AM, FM, SW1, SW2 tuner with AFC, twin VU meters and a huge & fully retracting 11 segment antenna!
It has two round forward facing speakers and 2 side mounted oval speakers making it a 4 speaker unit.
Time to rip off the back. The screws on the back are a mixture of fine thread screws and self tapers! You have to be careful as even the self tapers are of differing lengths!
View attachment 3147
Two small fine thread screws are then removed from the top sides to enable the top instrument panel to be levered up and out from the rear. You will notice that the tuner window on this model is removable via some self tapers. I've never seen a boombox with a removable tuner window!
View attachment 3146
After removing around 6 more self tapers, the chassis is now ready for removal. The tape deck door has to be ejected as usual for chassis removal.
View attachment 3148
The deck has 3 retaining screws to remove. I removed the heads from the deck to save time in tracing the wiring etc. Be careful not to loose the head adjustment spring - it's not attached to the head on this model.
View attachment 3149
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Check out one of the tape counter belts. A total of 4 pulleys are run by just this one belt!
There is another belt on the other side of the deck that is driven by a capstan.
View attachment 3151
The belts were toast - extra sticky belts on this old girl. The flywheel and motor were smothered!!
View attachment 3152
View attachment 3153
All moving surfaces and all pulleys etc required a thorough clean and lube as they were all sticky or partially seized. As you may have noticed, I had one more screw to attach to the flywheel backing plate when this photo was taken.
After the deck was cleaned up (destroying more than 100 cotton tips in the process), lubed and re-belted, this 4 belt deck was ready for action! The motor was actually running a little fast on this one but luckily, AIWA provided an adjustment pot on the motor (unlike the Hitachi TRK-9150W I worked on yesterday).
View attachment 3154
Overall, the AIWA deck restoration worked out well. The heads on this unit were pristine with no corrosion or signs of wear. Both channels are even in clarity and output. The recording from radio was fine also luckily. Auto stop function was also operating as AIWA intended. You never really know what you're going to end up with sometimes when you re-belt an old girl like this AIWA.
Quick operation test video:
This unit was overall a pretty easy and fun box to work on despite the high density design. Total time required for this deck was 1.5 hours including cleaning pots, cleaning, adjusting and demagnetizing heads etc. If you have one of these AIWAs needing work, don't hesitate to have a go!
Thanks,
James....
While money has been a little tight lately, I've been concentrating on getting my better boxes fully operational. While my little AIWA TPR-930 is no bass monster, it does sound decent and it has a fantastic line in and tuner so it was worthwhile and high time to get the deck working. This unit was a local Gumtree.com.au find. It was advertised as in 'fully operational condition' for $30. Upon testing, the seller agreed to a reduced price of $20 due to a dead deck (shock horror).
View attachment 3155
View attachment 3156
Fast foward 40 years!
View attachment 3144
View attachment 3145
The TPR-930 is typical of an early to mid seventies AIWA - compact, high density construction and super solid and heavy! This model was top of the tree in stereo portables for AIWA in 1973. Stereo, chrome tape capability, loudness, no sliders, Memory function, a very sensitive AM, FM, SW1, SW2 tuner with AFC, twin VU meters and a huge & fully retracting 11 segment antenna!
It has two round forward facing speakers and 2 side mounted oval speakers making it a 4 speaker unit.
Time to rip off the back. The screws on the back are a mixture of fine thread screws and self tapers! You have to be careful as even the self tapers are of differing lengths!
View attachment 3147
Two small fine thread screws are then removed from the top sides to enable the top instrument panel to be levered up and out from the rear. You will notice that the tuner window on this model is removable via some self tapers. I've never seen a boombox with a removable tuner window!
View attachment 3146
After removing around 6 more self tapers, the chassis is now ready for removal. The tape deck door has to be ejected as usual for chassis removal.
View attachment 3148
The deck has 3 retaining screws to remove. I removed the heads from the deck to save time in tracing the wiring etc. Be careful not to loose the head adjustment spring - it's not attached to the head on this model.
View attachment 3149
View attachment 3150
Check out one of the tape counter belts. A total of 4 pulleys are run by just this one belt!
There is another belt on the other side of the deck that is driven by a capstan.View attachment 3151
The belts were toast - extra sticky belts on this old girl. The flywheel and motor were smothered!!
View attachment 3152
View attachment 3153
All moving surfaces and all pulleys etc required a thorough clean and lube as they were all sticky or partially seized. As you may have noticed, I had one more screw to attach to the flywheel backing plate when this photo was taken.
After the deck was cleaned up (destroying more than 100 cotton tips in the process), lubed and re-belted, this 4 belt deck was ready for action!
The motor was actually running a little fast on this one but luckily, AIWA provided an adjustment pot on the motor (unlike the Hitachi TRK-9150W I worked on yesterday).View attachment 3154
Overall, the AIWA deck restoration worked out well. The heads on this unit were pristine with no corrosion or signs of wear. Both channels are even in clarity and output. The recording from radio was fine also luckily. Auto stop function was also operating as AIWA intended. You never really know what you're going to end up with sometimes when you re-belt an old girl like this AIWA.
Quick operation test video:
This unit was overall a pretty easy and fun box to work on despite the high density design. Total time required for this deck was 1.5 hours including cleaning pots, cleaning, adjusting and demagnetizing heads etc. If you have one of these AIWAs needing work, don't hesitate to have a go!
Thanks,
James....
