Classic Hifi Care

Took a leisurely drive over to the west side and picked up the motorola . she is in decent shape , definitely needs work and cleaned out of all the dust bunnies , the cabinet is in fair to good condition. on a quick test , the FM/FM stereo works... that's it,... the changer is so gummed up to even do anything, the motor runs but stops spinning instantly when turned off, the idler surprisingly is still pliable. the cartridge is stone dead. the AM does not tune, I assume the cord is broken? Next I will start to disassemble it, first to remove the chassis if I can figure it out , it says remove the 2 wing nuts on the bottom and pull it out... nope... will not move ,like it is secured somewhere else ...anyone know if the benzel needs to come off? here are a view pics ...

It's been my experience that if they are really dirty when you get them, they build out and work better. You got a deal on it. I look forward to watching your progress on bringing it back to life. I looks like it should be a good performer when you get done. Good luck...

Nice Motorola Elton, I'm glad you got it. Did you eat at the House of Flavors? With my Motorola, the faceplate had to come off before I could remove the tuner. Mine has the straight dial instead of the round like yours so that may make a difference on how it all comes apart. If I might ask, what's the two things on the console floor that is not the amp? Is that the amp and reverb unit? Good luck, and have fun!

Bill

Looks like a reverb spring tank on the extreme R. Nice find!

Bill, the two smaller chassis on the right are the FM multiplex, and as firedome said the extreme right is the reverb tank unit... when I got the back off it was lying on its side... it looks like it is secured to the case just by some double sided tape or something and it let go... hope it still works. I think it is all virgin it there... nothing has been touched in years ... the back says to access the tuner tubes pull the record holder up and out ... well that took me about 1/2 hour to figure out, as the holder also had small nails holding it apparently from the factory ... if I hadn't noticed them I would have destroyed the plastic holder trying to get that out... the tuner says remove the 2 wing nuts on the bottom of the tuner so you can pull the tuner out to service.. but it still does not budge ... I am assuming the benzel hides some fasteners ?... the changer was already half out , so I took it out and serviced it this weekend , it was really gummed up, but on the bright spot the idler looks like it was replaced at some time it is like new. Found a P-192 cartridge in my stash that fits great as the original was dead zero output, then I polished up the gold finishes with some rubbing compound ... it looks good now..more to come...

is that the changer model number on these ?... underneath it says 1245?... I know the 857 is EIA for VM, I think the rest is 34th week of 1962 the rest ? who knows ...darn wish I had known you had the service data... first thing I did was ordered the schematics from sams

It's a variant of the VM 1200 series, one of the most robust and dependable changers ever built. Lots of manufacturers used those things.

Congrats on getting the Motorola home! I have yet to hear one of these with this amp setup. Motorola claims that they are 20 watts output with 51 watts peak output. 10 watts out of the PP 6v6 bass channel and 5 watts each in the left and right channels. With those numbers, Motorola was not pushing that amp very hard at all. The big amp, with the 6 6v6 tubes, one pair per channel in PP, is rated at 51 watts output, 101 peak. 17 watt per channel, left, right, and center. Thinking of a pair of 6V6 tubes in PP, that is getting driven pretty hard to get that much power per channel, but they sure do sound amazing!

Looking forward to hearing how this project goes!

Me too Elton, me too!

Bill

Has anyone ever disassembled one of these before?... I still cannot figure out how the tuner comes out... I removed the 2 wing nuts as stated by the tag on the back , I pulled the knobs off and found 2 nuts one at each end of the controls on the which I removed assuming it held the escutcheon.... nope .... anyone have direction as to how this thing comes apart?
Thanks
Elton

hermitcrab wrote: ↑Tue Aug 03, 2021 2:33 pm Has anyone ever disassembled one of these before?... I still cannot figure out how the tuner comes out... I removed the 2 wing nuts as stated by the tag on the back , I pulled the knobs off and found 2 nuts one at each end of the controls on the which I removed assuming it held the escutcheon.... nope .... anyone have direction as to how this thing comes apart?
Thanks
Elton

They are kind of pressed in, if you push up on the bolts that the wing nuts were screwed on to, the tuner should just pop up out of the top, no need to remove the knobs.

That is what I thought ... does the escutcheon and all come out ?... even a small hammer tapping on the studs that the wing nuts were on does nothing , I tried pushing on the chassis straight up it just lifts up the whole console , it acts like there are fasteners somewhere I am missing

Everything comes out, 60 years of not moving probably has it a little stuck, they are also kind of tension fit in too. Try pushing up on one side to get it up then the other side should come out too.

Is there a possibility that the "channel" knobs need to come off, and the bezel removed, to get the tuner out? You indicate that the tuner seems solid still. You took all the control knobs off and found a couple screws hidden. Maybe there are a couple under the top of the bezel or a couple capture nuts under the channel knobs. Just a guess, but nothing else seems to be working. Good luck.

The screws under the knobs are for separating the preamp from the tuner once it is pulled out. I've taken a few of these tuners out, and they come out as a single assembly. They were all pretty tight from sitting.

Try pushing up on the bottom of the tuner chassis where is is flat. A couple of the ones that I have done will all of a sudden just pop up and it scared the crap out of me the first time.

So.. it all comes out together... escutcheon and all... I will give it a try... scared of breaking the escutcheon... it is still super tight to the top of the unit and won't budge .. not even room to slip a pry tool or anything , it is that tight ...