Klunker nope Bomber #33

Let's welcome the new two wheeled addition

to the Perich quiver.

Yes Houston we have a problem...

These things multiply like rabbits!

It all started with a chance Ebay score.

Okay it wasn't really by chance.

With the rainy season dwindling early,

it's possible to explore the local paths.

With two older kids,

we don't need to be fighting over rides!

What a great excuse...

So I hunted and scrounged,

scoring this bitchin 1936 Schwinn C model frame,

80's gold wheels and a truss fork.

Of course a budget frame will have issues...

The rear axle dropouts were seriously splayed out.

Good thing I know a welder!

This is quality 80 year old metal,

TIG rod beefed up the deadened space.

The worst were the fender crosspieces,

mangled by over tightening fasteners through the years.

The tubular steel was replaced with stronger solid rod,

sourced from a couple of long bolts.

A little heat and coercion,

the curves were matched better than original.

Most important was filing and sanding

the leftover braze,

allowing a clean weld.

Lotsa splatter and holes if you don't.

Since fenders aren't in the future,

no holes were drilled yet.

There's a possibility for BMX style brakes,

then the overbuild will be needed.

A couple seat posts welder from some shop scrap,

ready to roll...

But let's throw some paint on there first.

We went hog wild with the patina.

And beyond hog wild on the badge.

Can't ride it without an overpriced one of those...

Fortunately there are cheap-ish badges around,

even if you go Gucci with an Excelsior or Ace.

Beaters shine up sweet with some paint and time.

The gold BMX wheels needed hand brakes.

Decisions of drums, cantilevers, welding pivots...

Too much thinking.

For now a set of coaster brake rims will do,

changing the klunker build to a bomber.

Back in the 70's,

klunkers had gears and hand brakes,

bombers used more simple foot brakes.

The aluminum cranks and wheels make this super light,

resulting in a quick and fun ride.

The old road bike Brooks saddle is softer than it looks!

T

G

G

Pioneer SX-800 - round 3

The stereo again?

So soon you're wondering!

Well that's how to get a project done.

Don't stagnate too long,

it'll start turning into a shelf.

Plus what else am I to do 

with the family 1000 miles away!!

A quick recap...

the problem was a scratchy electrical noise out of one side.

Switching tubes, cleaning pots and recapping didn't fix anything,

it actually made the scratching more clear.

I found a copy of the original sx-800 manual,

with the master list of resistors and capacitors.

Wow.

About 111 resistors in this thing!!

The list made it much easier to order,

otherwise most resistors use a colored band/stripe code.

That would have taken forever.

The downside was I bought all the resistors and a few ceramic caps.

Fortunately only $45 or so shipped.

I over-researched the replacement variations.

There are wire wound, carbon and metal film,

with multiple versions of each type.

Online companies like Digikey and Mouser 

stock basically all the variations for $$,

however a site called justradios.com

specializes in tube restoration,

and they carry what works in most instances.

Their ordering menu is quick and easy.

The down side is there selection is more limited.

Instead of a large pipe style wire-wound,

they had the newer ceramic style,

which needed some hot rodding,

more like rat rodding.

JB weld rated their epoxy at 500 continuous degrees.

This was the perfect test piece.

Good thing these have a shield,

what an ugly mess!

It took two short evenings to replace this pile.

By rough calculations this would take 20 evenings to finish!!

Looks like a big blur to most of ya I'm sure.

Underneath I concentrated on the tone control portion front center,

bass and treble,

as there was a weird thump when the low filter switch was switched.

Out of curiousity the old Heathkit multimeter was brought out.

Let's check out the ohms! 

This carbon dogbone style is known to degrade with time, moisture and heat.

Nothin was way out of spec,

as these all have a 20% tolerance!

Interestingly enough,

the resistors in the pics above

don't match their #'s on the sheet.

An 8 degree colder change in temperature changed them by .02...

Guess what?

This thing sounded perfect!

No more annoying scratching noise.

Bummer was not knowing exactly which ones were the culprit.

Those brown circles - ceramic capacitors,

looked questionable but I can't test them.

Great...

Now what to do with the rest of the pile!

I'm figuring that the resistance changed with the tube heat,

well beyond their 50 year old specs.

I'll probably swap at least 20-30 more out.

After about 4 hours burn time,

no big pops of smoke so far!!

Just in time too,

the boys flew up here to visit,

and snagged my PDX listening station!

Good times...

TP

Pioneer SX-800 - Round 2

Ok,

Its raining or snowing,

you're stuck all alone,

what are ya gonna do...

Watch a bunch of movies,

or tinker on a project?

Well ya know what I'm gonna do...

I was wound up for this one,

parts were ordered a week in advance,

arriving just in time for a winter weekend.

You probably were hoping I'd be done writing about this.

The previous time only the suspect "Suzuki" caps were swapped,

unfortunately not fixing the base problem,

which is this random crackle noise coming from one side.

A late night was spent sucking in soldering fumes.

After this batch was replaced,

all the bottom caps were now new.

Looks like fun huh!?

Well it's not when you plug it in and it doesn't work.

At all.

Holey Chit.

Going to sleep with a broken fix isn't fun,

however waking up at 4am knowing the problem is.

Weird how the brain works like that.

Thankfully an easy and obvious issue,

a power diode wire had broken.

Whew.

Wow,

now it really sang.

The tube sound is like being bathed in warmth.

What a feeling of accomplishment.

For about an hour or two.

Holey Double Chit...

Good thing there was a Plan 2-B.

See those black and blue things on top there?

Those would get rid of the last electrolytic capacitors,

which are known to leak or degrade after 10-15 years.

All righty now they're installed,

all but one anyway,

nice fat new filter caps.

Time to shine...

Again...what clarity, what bass!!

Yes! 

Mission accomplished!

For maybe two hours.

Holey Triple Effin Chit.

There's a saying for this...

"Fuck this - lets ride"

Snow and rain clear my head!

I made it back without taking a slide 

and busting myself up.

So...

The crackling issue creeps as the amp heats up,

and swapping tubes to different sides

doesn't change anything,

meaning the tubes should be ok.

Also hitting low/bass filter switch will make a thump.

I'm no expert,

buy I am a quick online study.

See those grey dogbone like things?

Well those are Suzuki carbon composition resistors,

supposedly not the greatest for age, heat and moisture.

I ended up ordering every replacement resistor,

even the brown and blue ones with the stripes.

About 111 total...

Yikes.

Also,

see those round brown discs?

Those are ceramic capacitors,

which supposedly are very durable,

but what about when there is white stuff on them?

Cheap enough replacements to gamble,

everything was less than $50 shipped.

Sadly I had to let go of an old stablemate.

The Sansui 2000a sacrificed itself for this bout,

it had its 45 year old issues and ya gotta choose your battles.

Let's see how Round 3 goes!

ding-ding...

TP

Pioneer sx-800 - happy distraction

Being stuck up in Portland away from my family

has been and still is the ongoing test of sanity,

especially after almost 17 years 

of supersaturated marriage and parenthood.

Fortunately the cellphone opens up a world of communication,

texting, calls and FaceTime really soften the blows on both sides.

The kids and wife really stepped it up for this adventure.

The work week is busy enough and scoots by.

The weekends are the killers,

especially 3 day weekends.

Compound that with a rare PDX snow,

and a bit of a cold or fever,

and mang now what do I do!?

Well some would wrap themselves in front of the boob tube.

Nah...

I'd already trapped myself with a few Craigslist projects,

this was a chance to chill and tinker.

It only took 2 weeks here for my first CL score,

a Pioneer SX-800 tube receiver.

(The top one - I brought up the bottom)

Original owner said it worked great!

Yea right...

The dust would have started a house fire!

When I got the room,

one of the first things I did was vacuum it out.

This is when ya don't realize that hook is getting lodged in the throat.

The trap doesn't seem like a trap.

Typically an unused machine should have a slow start,

using a variac or a dim bulb tester.

Nah this was cheap enough to try it out.

Surprisingly the sound was clear and crisp,

that warm tubey sound people love.

Yea I was hooked.

Unsurprisingly there was major controller/pot static,

and definite popping from certain switches.

Spray cleaning helped,

but a deeper fix was long overdue.

Hours of online studying ensued.

A workshop was needed.

Building hot rods, boats, bikes...

fixing stereo equipment,

sometimes it feels like things happen,

and I'm just a conduit for those parts to come together.

I'd been searching craigslist for the two important house pieces,

a sturdy table and a bulb holder.

After work one day these were outside an old vacating house,

in an area I was only in by accident.

Yes!

Way better than anything I'd seen on CL,

and I was prepared to spend some $$.

Now we've got a workbench and light,

and that $$ could go somewhere fun!

My weekend CL hunting grew.

These Polk Monitor 10 speakers were a score,

although there was a half hour drive to get them.

This was the best way to learn Portland,

driving to places I didn't need to be.

The woofer domes were punched in.

Using a small hose taped to a vacuum,

they popped right back out.

Still a little creased but better than before.

These babies sound great,

especially in a smaller room.

I can see why they've got a cult following.

The lower woofer is passive,

basically a valve for the air movement.

It's amazing how much bass is made

with the 2-6.5" speaks.

Than these Technics SB-L300's appeared.

I couldn't resist.

Good ole 3-way blasters.

They're a great higher range speaker,

coupled with the Klipsch Fortes they really fill the room.

I like them more than JBL 4311's!

Most importantly,

what perfect double shelf space!

Keys, wallet, knife, all have a home...

I was going to bring this pair to the shop.

In the meantime I'd studied tube amps online

and found potential problems in the Pioneer.

Early capacitors,

specifically the Suzuki brand,

were known to not last 10 years let alone 50.

Here's one that basically exploded.

Was that the crackly noise?

The best thing was to recap everything.

Ok the best thing would be to Ebay it and double the $$ while I could!

Not yet...

Get out the reading glasses!

Each capacitor was marked and sourced,

either from drug dealer type websites that cater to tube addicts

or straight from oversees mainliners.

There's basic $.50 caps and Gucci bouquet $16 caps.  

How trapped was I?

I did get tricked with the yellow "Dijon" caps,

which looked like Mallory caps with a sticker.

At only a few dollars total more a cheap lesson.

Fast forward to this snow weekend...

Thankfully half the caps showed up before.

I was able to solder in a handful.

Sucked being in a closed room!

Some repair guys swap one then test,

either to pinpoint exact issues,

or to doublecheck their soldering connection.

I kinda blew through the whole bag of yellows,

then seconded back for the big and little ones.

Wow these actually made a difference!

Turning the bass knobs before would make a flubbing sound,

now they controlled smooth like they were supposed too.

Many switches lost there violent pop,

and the tuner pulled in stations much smoother.

Bummer not all the caps had arrived,

it's obvious the old electrolytics were fried.

During the preliminary repair,

I did uncover a few mystery caps,

which now are ordered up.

By researching a little I learned to hold off replacing tubes,

at least until a full recap,

or each tube could actually be tested.

Working on this is kinda like moving here.

First I didn't have any idea where I was,

and through familiarity I know my way around.

So yea thanks for bearing with the ramble.

I'm trying to hold back more buying,

unless I do some selling to compensate!

It's tough cause there are some great deals,

and PDX craigslisters are waaay slower than in San Diego.

Next time I'll show the bike scores!!

TP