Post by doghouseriley on Jul 9, 2024 11:48:49 GMT
As it was running slow, I took the carousel motor out a year ago and cleaned the commutator as best I could. But it started tripping out again a few months ago.
It's an absolute pain to get out. So as it lives in our summerhouse at the bottom of our garden, I waited till the (slightly) warmer months to tackle it.
You have to remove the small back panel and try to get a spinner on the three bolts that secure it by "feel" as you can't see them. To do this, you have to lie full-length on the floor behind the box.
An even bigger problem putting it back! Though I put Blu-tac around the head of the spinner to hold the bolts on.
Not easy when you are 84. (But still fit enough to play golf the following day!)
Anyway, I'd seen somewhere a tip for removing scoring on a commutator.
I put the spindle in my electric drill and locked it in the vice on my work bench. I then got half a pencil and wrapped a strip of fine emery paper just as wide, lengthways, around the pencil and held it against the commutator and turned on the drill. A few changes of paper and it looked as good as new. I remembered to scrape out with the tip of a Stanley knife blade, a bit of the insulation between the segments.
I did test it before putting it back.
I had been looking for a replacement motor, but these seem to be made of "unobtainium."
If I'd called out one of the few remaining Jukebox service companies, they would likely want to take it back to their workshop and raise it to a "working height." This would have cost me "an arm and a leg," rather than just 59p for a sheet of emery paper.
It's working and looking almost as good as new. I've been lucky, apart from having to remove twenty years of cigarette tar on all the surfaces, the responsibility of the previous owner, when I bought it on eBay fifteen years, ago I've only ever had to just replace the turntable motor grommets.
Few of these models will now have a graphic equally as good as this. They fade over time. But fifteen years ago I managed to get a "new old stock" replacement from Leon at Jukebox parts for the princely sum of £5.
