Wurlitzer Fuego 1984 repair and refurb

[Ron Rich]

Darren,
Shame on you-- You have de-valued that phono something terrible, by removing the patina !! Ron Rich

[whammoed]

Ron,
Don't worry, I'm leaving a cigarette burn on the top plexi. Gotta keep some of the history right?

[Ron Rich]

Darren,
You have restored my faith ! Thanks !! Ron Rich

[whammoed]

Update:
Finally adjusted the tonearm weight. Wasn't able to get it below 4.6g with the stock setup. I replaced the stock 45mm screw with a 50mm screw and that gave me plenty of additional leverage to get the weight down to 3g where I wanted to try it. I'm sure the stock setup was done purposefully. Less chance of skipping (and thus less complaints) if you keep the tonearm weight on the heavy side. This is at the expense of record wear of course. These machines were money makers after all. The new stylus sounds good to my ears. I would need a NOS Shure needle on hand to do a side by side. May pick one up at some point to see.

Ron,
Any opinion on NOS Shure made in USA vs made in Mexico? Same quality?

[whammoed]

Sounding good especially hooked up to my vintage Pioneers.

[whammoed]

Having an issue where sometimes the B side is played when A side is selected. The A side solenoid is firing for the proper 3 seconds but sometimes the gripper is too slow to engage it in time. The gripper mechanism being slow can either be lubrication issue or motor issue. I've already done the lubrication so I will look at the motor next. I'll try cleaning the armature and inspect the brushes. It also has a squeakiness to it. I'll source a replacement if I can't get it running at the right speed and without the noise.

Here's a video of the mechanism in action. This time it barely engages the A side in time.

[whammoed]

Cleaning the armature only made a very slight improvement in speed.  I also inspected the motor's gear box and redistributed the grease to all the gears.  Mechanism is still too slow and the squeak/squeal/chirp/WhateverYouCallIt is still there.  Will need to either upgrade to the newer style motor which involves taking the series and brake resistors out of the circuit or source an old motor.

On the bright side I was able to get everything running outside the cabinet which makes things so much better to work on.  Wurlitzer almost had it right with their cable lengths.  Had to re-route the two S&CC ribbon cables a bit.  I noticed some wire damage on one cable which I repaired and while I was at it I extended the single yellow wire (coin counter I believe) so I wouldn't have to remove the 3-pin plug for it and the test switch...and also want the test switch to work when working outside the cab.

[Ron Rich]

Hi Darrin,
Is this the sealed, oval can motor, or the open-able style motor -- either way, three was around replacement motor for these--
Might check with John at "flippers.com"-- Ron Rich

[whammoed]

Ron,

You can open it. That's how I was able to check the gear grease situation. Way ahead of you on John's Jukes at flippers.com. He has two different motor kits listed. I asked him to check them out to see which would be best for my application. He's a member here now thanks to my broken spring thread.

[whammoed]

New gear motor came in. I may have gotten carried away ordering parts to have spares and spruce up this old gal.

[Ron Rich]

Hummmmmmm-- coodmaybe ?? Ron Rich

[whammoed]

I swapped out the gear motor and now things are moving fast enough for the A side solenoid to do its job. I'm not sure what happened but I have a new issue. The tonearm is being set down near the end of the record and when done playing it will scratch the record before lifting the tonearm back up. It's like something is out of sequence but none of the cams are loose and I haven't changed anything else. Any ideas? see video:

[Ron Rich]

Hi Darren,
I have seen this happen before, but my great but not too long memory is refusing to divulge what to do about it--somehow the tone arm has "slipped" on it's post-- Iffin I recall correctly, the adjustment proceedure is in the manual. Ron Rich

[whammoed]

Ron,

Dunno.  The tonearm seems to still be in the right position.  I can manually move it to the start of the record.  See video below.

The part that really perplexes me is when the end of the record is reached it is moving the tonearm before lifting it.  There is a cam that controls the left right movement and a cam that controls up down.  Both cams are permanently attached to the same shaft yet the functions appear to be out of synch.

[whammoed]

Ugh, I think I figured it out. You are going to love it if so.