little feet

After over a year the reconditioned sound cards finally arrived from Terry DeWick.
I also scored some big filter caps from a friend Sean.
Crazy how big they are.

McIntosh MC2300 

The MC2300 amp had been sitting like this for such a long time,
it's become a fixture in the house.
Like a sculpture.

no sound cards

Here's a picture of the reconditioned cards.
I'm figuring if the McIntosh Master says they're good to go,
than they are good to go.

reconditioned McIntosh MC2300 sound/driver cards

Then the typical happened.
I propped up the amp to do some swapping around,
and holey chit there's way too many wires and pieces.
The amp has a relatively simple layout,
but it is one of those all or nothing deals.
The living room isn't a place to spread out a bunch of parts,
and hope that they won't be accidentally kicked around.
More importantly I'll forget how everything goes back together.

operating table

So I did what comes naturally.
If there is something to cut, drill, weld or machine,
I'll find it.

mcintosh feet

The little rubberish feet had been ground down to nubs,
two were already missing.
A chunk of scrap ABS plastic was lying around,
and a couple rudimentary replacements were whittled out.

replacement mcintosh mc2300 amplifier feet

Not exact replacements,
but who's gonna see them other than you guys.
I should make a set or two to sling.

little feet

Another issue was the broken light mount.
There are studs on the meters that hold on the light.
Mine had broken off,
and someone had soldered on a crude sheetmetal tab.
Now it was time for my hack work.

light mount

A couple tabs were hammered and punched,
and JB Weld was used to glue them in place.
Please work...
Good thing I saw the ripped out wire that powers that light bar.
A quick solder job and fingers crossed that it was the right spot!

clamped

The amp was now ready to go.
The filter capacitors would wait for a later time.
Let's see if it works.

McIntosh MC2300

The lights lit and there were no pops.
Whew...
The sound was clean but still no power.
Maybe its cause there's no preamp hooked up?

I've suspected something more major than the driver boards,
that is why the new filter capacitors.
Most likely it is a transistor/resistor problem,
there are 24!
Since the heat sinks need to be removed to swap out the caps,
it was my excuse to not start that job until I scrounged up a transistor set.

test

The good thing so far is the amp isn't overheating like it was.
A couple of the heat sinks would get so hot,
and the heat would trade sides when the sound cards were switched around.
So maybe the cards burnt some transistors?
Looks like I'll be visiting Sean soon!

TP