Grayhouse
Active Member
Well, I have deffinently decided to keep the 3a's the way they are. I must have been suffering from momentary vapor lock on the brain before 
I have also decided to bring the 3's to there original condition as best I can minus the griils and cloth because that wil probally be next to impossible, but I digress. Here I'll be concentrating on the 3a's restoration.
As many of you know the weakest link on the AR's are the l-pads. Why they chose to go witrh such cheap units is beyond me. The're non-sealed and the're non-lubricated...not a good choice. I will have to replace these eventually, but for the time being these will have to do.
Step 1. Getting at the l-pads. There are more than a few wires to de-solder and a simple hex nut and washer holding the l-pads to the x/o board.
Step 2. Once the l-pad is removed a simple bailing type wire holds the two halves together. I learned the hard way that sometimes they don't like to come apart to easy once the wire is removed and I chipped a fairly good size piece off one of them. Luckily it was a clean break only at the rim and I was able to glue the piece back. The porceline seems to have become brittle and cracked over time on some of these so you have to be carefull taking them apart. As you can see it's pretty well oxidized, but not as bad as some. A couple on my AR3's were four times worse at least. A simple dremel tool with a wire wheel attachment works great in cleaning them. Just be carefull of the wire coil. (see the hairline cracks beneath the coil)
Step 3. Here we have a nice shiny finshed unit. It's not perfect and it is pitted, but it will do for the time being untill I track down some new ones. Before I put them back together I gave them a good deoxit bath and gave them a good coating with deoxit ProGold. Once they were put together I gave them one final shot of ProGold. Before reinstaling them in the x/o I let them sit for 30 minutes and then wrapped the units in electrical tape and checked there impedance sweep on both polls and they measured dead on up to 14.9ohms, a far cry from what they were doing before.
Coming soon: Part 2. Woofer surrounds. It looks like PE sells some exact replacements so I have decided to take a stab at this myself since I have never done it before and I think it will be a good learning experience. So don't be surprised if I ask you guys a gillion questions before I start on that endevor. So be warned and stay tuned :yes:
I have also decided to bring the 3's to there original condition as best I can minus the griils and cloth because that wil probally be next to impossible, but I digress. Here I'll be concentrating on the 3a's restoration. As many of you know the weakest link on the AR's are the l-pads. Why they chose to go witrh such cheap units is beyond me. The're non-sealed and the're non-lubricated...not a good choice. I will have to replace these eventually, but for the time being these will have to do.
Step 1. Getting at the l-pads. There are more than a few wires to de-solder and a simple hex nut and washer holding the l-pads to the x/o board.
Step 2. Once the l-pad is removed a simple bailing type wire holds the two halves together. I learned the hard way that sometimes they don't like to come apart to easy once the wire is removed and I chipped a fairly good size piece off one of them. Luckily it was a clean break only at the rim and I was able to glue the piece back. The porceline seems to have become brittle and cracked over time on some of these so you have to be carefull taking them apart. As you can see it's pretty well oxidized, but not as bad as some. A couple on my AR3's were four times worse at least. A simple dremel tool with a wire wheel attachment works great in cleaning them. Just be carefull of the wire coil. (see the hairline cracks beneath the coil)
Step 3. Here we have a nice shiny finshed unit. It's not perfect and it is pitted, but it will do for the time being untill I track down some new ones. Before I put them back together I gave them a good deoxit bath and gave them a good coating with deoxit ProGold. Once they were put together I gave them one final shot of ProGold. Before reinstaling them in the x/o I let them sit for 30 minutes and then wrapped the units in electrical tape and checked there impedance sweep on both polls and they measured dead on up to 14.9ohms, a far cry from what they were doing before.
Coming soon: Part 2. Woofer surrounds. It looks like PE sells some exact replacements so I have decided to take a stab at this myself since I have never done it before and I think it will be a good learning experience. So don't be surprised if I ask you guys a gillion questions before I start on that endevor. So be warned and stay tuned :yes:
