So good 'ol Henry Tai sent me a nice Big Ben for repair. It had significant issues. Basically everything was dead. After some work, I'm about 90% complete on the restoration. Just some details remain.
Anyhow, the subject of this thread is with regards to the big ben deck and that's what I'm going to focus on. Symptoms were dead deck. So I opened it up and find that the belts have turned to goo. It's been serviced before because the cabling ties inside are non-oem, although it does appear to have been serviced professionally because all is tied up nice and neat, there are no missing screws or any other amateurish shenanigans.
So, lots of Q-tips, 1-whole roll of paper towels, and 3 or 4 oz of isopropyl later, it's rebelted, cleaned and reassembled.
Time for the big Test and results: FF is very strong but RW only works for a microsecond (and appears to move in reverse).
Play actuates and feeds tape for a second or two but tape does not spool onto the fwd take up reel and shuts off. Tested it without a tape and the Fwd reel definitely not turning at all. Something is definitely wrong. Could the 4-wire motor have been reconnected weird? No, checked and that's fine. Belts routed wrong? No -- pretty simple layout. What could be wrong?
So removed the deck again and whatever ails the deck is not superficial. Significant dis-assembly was necessary to find the culprit. A spring is found connected to nothing. A bracket under an idler wheel has a fork shaped spade tip. Could it be that this fork shaped end should've been a right angle upward hook instead? 
Looking at how the idler works, it does appear that the idler needs to be "pulled" up against the Fwd reel drive ring. Obviously, this part is no longer available anywhere. Someone got a big ben parts deck somewhere? No, I didn't think so. I could see myself bumping in the parts wanted forum for years to come. This is not the first time I've come across this issue but this one seems fixable. I recall Ira had a CFD-5 with a similar issue. Anyhow, with nothing to lose, I decided to attempt the fix.
First thing to do was to find a very strong but thin piece of material to fix the nylon bracket. I have successfully used thin PVC, the kind used to make plastic bottles and blister packs, to laminate and strengthen weakened parts before. You know the kind -- so tenacious they tear up your fingers bloody before they give. So strong no set of teeth can harm it. Anyhow, when pretreated with activator followed up with superglue -- it makes for a permanent repair. Well, here is the repair. This may apply to other boomboxes with similar types of issues.
The hole on the bottom of the lamination needed to be perfectly sized. I used a drill... forgot the size but just go up incrementally using a good set of bits to find the right size. The superglue alone should do it but with the hole fitting perfectly over that shouldered boss, there is no way that it can be pulled off. The only question is whether the hole that connects to the spring will be durable or not. Only time will tell. But so far, so good.
It's been tested and all functions work fine now. This is definitely one deck that has been brought back from the dead. Without this "fix" it's a sure bet that this deck will never play again and that would be a shame given the grail status of this boombox.
Anyhow, the subject of this thread is with regards to the big ben deck and that's what I'm going to focus on. Symptoms were dead deck. So I opened it up and find that the belts have turned to goo. It's been serviced before because the cabling ties inside are non-oem, although it does appear to have been serviced professionally because all is tied up nice and neat, there are no missing screws or any other amateurish shenanigans.
So, lots of Q-tips, 1-whole roll of paper towels, and 3 or 4 oz of isopropyl later, it's rebelted, cleaned and reassembled.
Time for the big Test and results: FF is very strong but RW only works for a microsecond (and appears to move in reverse).
Play actuates and feeds tape for a second or two but tape does not spool onto the fwd take up reel and shuts off. Tested it without a tape and the Fwd reel definitely not turning at all. Something is definitely wrong. Could the 4-wire motor have been reconnected weird? No, checked and that's fine. Belts routed wrong? No -- pretty simple layout. What could be wrong?So removed the deck again and whatever ails the deck is not superficial. Significant dis-assembly was necessary to find the culprit. A spring is found connected to nothing. A bracket under an idler wheel has a fork shaped spade tip.
Could it be that this fork shaped end should've been a right angle upward hook instead? Looking at how the idler works, it does appear that the idler needs to be "pulled" up against the Fwd reel drive ring. Obviously, this part is no longer available anywhere. Someone got a big ben parts deck somewhere? No, I didn't think so. I could see myself bumping in the parts wanted forum for years to come. This is not the first time I've come across this issue but this one seems fixable. I recall Ira had a CFD-5 with a similar issue. Anyhow, with nothing to lose, I decided to attempt the fix.First thing to do was to find a very strong but thin piece of material to fix the nylon bracket. I have successfully used thin PVC, the kind used to make plastic bottles and blister packs, to laminate and strengthen weakened parts before. You know the kind -- so tenacious they tear up your fingers bloody before they give. So strong no set of teeth can harm it. Anyhow, when pretreated with activator followed up with superglue -- it makes for a permanent repair. Well, here is the repair. This may apply to other boomboxes with similar types of issues.
The hole on the bottom of the lamination needed to be perfectly sized. I used a drill... forgot the size but just go up incrementally using a good set of bits to find the right size. The superglue alone should do it but with the hole fitting perfectly over that shouldered boss, there is no way that it can be pulled off. The only question is whether the hole that connects to the spring will be durable or not. Only time will tell. But so far, so good.
It's been tested and all functions work fine now. This is definitely one deck that has been brought back from the dead. Without this "fix" it's a sure bet that this deck will never play again and that would be a shame given the grail status of this boombox.
Swiss watch master 
