Since my last post at the end of August I've been working on the following: two Pioneer KH-8855, a Panasonic SG-3060S, a Sharp SG-165X - all 3 in 1 (Radio, Cassette, Turntable) units. Also a Hitachi D-E95, plus the radios I have done live on the YouTube channel. Belts had arrived after 3 times trying to order them.
The Pioneer units were quite upmarket in 1979 costing, $800 and have 25 watt amplifiers. Both were free. The cassette decks are reasonably sophisticated with duel flywheels etc. and are fully mechanical. Both were jammed, and after an afternoon of trying to work out why I discovered that the cassette door needed to be closed. I left one of them running while we were working on the car and the cassette failed electrically for some reason I haven't been able to trace. The cassette runs when cross connected to the other machine.
The Panasonic from 1977 is also working except for a small screw that holds the head alignment. This is an easy fix and is common on these 3 in 1's. It not quite as upmarket as the Pioneers, so I'll have to decided whether to re-cap it prior to selling. This and the Pioneers have the same CDC turntable and keys on the cassette decks that might suggest they are were made in the same factory.
I also bought some idler wheel tires for both the Sharp and the Hitachi. Neither solved the problems. The Sharp from 1975 has lost what seems to be a sleeve on the capstan. I don't know how I'm going to replace that as it needs to be tight enough not to slip.
The Hitachi is also a very long story. Bought in 2010 it had/has an intermittent problem of the Hall Effect sensor not sending out regular signals to the "computer". The belts were replaced in 2015 and that solved the problem for a while. Now the two small wheels on a pendulum are not engaging. These drive the take up and rewind reels. I replaced both tires and it is jamming.... I really want to fix this cassette deck as it sounds wonderful with it's 3 heads.
I am still waiting on pinch rollers for them all.
Yesterday I was given a Philips and another Panasonic 3 in 1, so I currently have six!
The Rover saga. I finally tracked down a gear for the traction control. After a lot of faffing around we managed to get the clock spring in the correct position. Still no joy on the dashboard lights. The next thing was to check the ABS pump unit. There is a 50 pin connector on it, this takes the wheel sensor data, speedo, and crash sensor data. This then goes to the management computer and on to the dashboard display, air bags etc. We took the plug off and in doing so somehow bent a pin. There was a lot of corrosion on some of the pins. Tried to clean those up to no avail, and they were probably corroded inside the unit.
On Friday last week we noticed that one had turned up in a wreckers. This is quite rare. It turned out to be one of the club members pride and joy. He had spend close to $20, 000 on it, mine cost $1,800. I went down on Tuesday the 200km each way to Dandenong. The car was pristine apart from the considerable rear damage, and the front suspension where it had been pushed into the gutter. I could only carry the ABS and TC units, so I might return in the coming week to get other better things I need. The ABS unit is fitted and the brakes bled. Next is grafting in the far better connector plug.
Well this is another long post, so I'll end here.