Pioneer Champagne Relapse

As many of you know Mark is in the hospital and we are all pulling hard for him. At the present time my beautiful SX-1980 is setting apart on his workbench with much work done and only Mark can do it like Mark can so I'm really starting to miss it after 6 months away. So along came an add for ANOTHER 1980, this is the only two I've seen in my life and I've been around. I had to get it, so I did along with some other Pioneer stuff. But I have never seen Pioneer stuff so filthy. It came from a basement with a wood burner and a smokers home. This is gonna take some time to get up and running. I finished the PL-518 and it looks great. But here are a couple teaser shots. I'm almost ashamed to show them all at once cause I know I overpaid for it all. Here are some of the components. These look much worst in real life. If I would of passed I'd hoped someone that appreciates these things would of bought it. But damn it, I never got to play with these before

I don't want anyone ill so I'll just show some of them now.

DaWoofer....Hey where did you find? I work in Elkhart and look in the Goodwill's and the pawn shops and never have had any luck...Wait I take that back, I did find an SG-9800 last year at a pawn shop in Oseola....Just curious

Nice stuff if you can get it all cleaned up and working!

Not overpaid, you have the cabinet for the eq and rtr.

We will not count the hours you spend cleaning that stuff up.

Here's another of the units that came in the deal. This stuff will take months to clean up with me working 60 hrs a week!
I happened to have seen this stuff on Craigslist last week or so. It was up your way in Eau Claire, MI.

DaWoofer said:

Here's another of the units that came in the deal. This stuff will take months to clean up with me working 60 hrs a week!
I happened to have seen this stuff on Craigslist last week or so. It was up your way in Eau Claire, MI.

Click to expand...

NICE! :thmbsp:

Are the cabinets hard to find? I was quite shocked when I pulled the EQ out of it, the weight is mostly cabinet. I don't think my Kenwood cabinets weight as much. Although the Kenny's are from 78-79 and I think the SG-9500 might be older than that so possibly that might be part of it, I really don't know. But these Pioneer's are very well built and sturdy enough to hold a very heavy receiver if needed be. I got to give them credit. Since getting my first sx-1980 a year or so ago this is my first go around with Pioneer equipment and I'm pretty impressed so far. Let's just hope this stuff works.

So I'm getting into the SG and the inside looked Pretty clean so I'm working on the knobs and faceplate but I noticed a slight white haze on the metal chassis inside that is opaque. I happened to only notice it after wiping down the slider chassis assy.
But I can tell you it doesn't look white on a white rage. I'm gonna have to clean the circuit boards as well now. Time to bust out the Q-tips. Oh, what a long road ahead.
So I'm getting into the SG and the inside looked Pretty clean so I'm working on the knobs and faceplate but I noticed a slight white haze on the metal chassis inside that is opaque. I happened to only notice it after wiping down the slider chassis assy.
But I can tell you it doesn't look white on a white rage. I'm gonna have to clean the circuit boards as well now. Time to bust out the Q-tips. Oh, what a long road ahead.
There appears to be yellowish grease on the pea green plastic on the end of the metal shaft that connects to the white plastic slid blocks that ride on the rails or metal runners. I take it FaderLube goes deeper on the black trace that the slide blocks ride on. some other basic grease up at the pea green slider where it meets the metal runners on top.
I'm trying to figure where FaderGrease goes. Surely not on the top where there is no electrical function and yellow grease was used. HELP!
I'm not wasting FaderGrease there!!!

you did good! From what I understand, the cabinets are indeed near impossible to find...

Well, here I go on the 900. These pics don't show the filth. I sprayed the faceplate and walked away for a few minutes and when I came back the moisture had run to one end and looked like drops of syrup. Good news was that I plugged it in prior to cleaning and all lites lit up. I bought this system untested. Stupid I know with the price I paid.I Knew these SX-1980's are rather rare and worst comes to worst an AK'er would end up with it if I get rid of it. Ya, I'm looking out for you all.
Also, I found out that all these wood cases for these units are quite rare also which evens my price paid a little easier to take.
Can you believe the dirt that made it through the outer wood case and onto the metal case? The good news I suppose is that this stuff set for the last 15 years. Not the best storage area in the basement but at least it was protected from moisture and such. I don't know much about take heads but maybe one of you all can tell by the pics of its condition so we can figure out how hard it was driven.
Thanks men for letting me fill you in on my Pioneer endevours. I never thought I'd end up with all this Pioneer gear, but owning a 1980 has swayed me a bit
Mark, if your reading- Get out of that place soon with full strength, we need you back at that workstation ASAP! Peace Brother as we are all thinking of you often.

Let's see pictures of the 1980.

It's another mess. It is still setting where my wife and I got it through the door. Its time to search for a heat sink for it. He claims one channel worked, but one heat sink is got fins missing big time and a dent on the back. He did say it was dropped :tears: I will get picks as soon as I get my brother or son-in-law to help my light a** get it down the basement stairs. I finally decided to hose the inside of the 900 down with cleaners, water, 91% alcohol and finally Everclear. Looking pretty good now but I can't get any of the buttons of the face to come off so I'm going to menard's or such and get some buffing wheels for the Drimel. Well, back at it.
By the way, I haven't tried to operate the recorder yet, the belts look intact and I'm hoping all is well there as they look like they could be a fight to change. Wish me luck!

Hey DaWoofer,

Have you determined that the SX-1980 actually works? If so, and you really plan to fix her up, PM me, I have a NOS heat sink I might be talked into parting with under the right terms

PM sent

I got the 900 cleaned and all that seems to be the problem is the take up belt is slipping. I was getting prepared to rebuild the motor after reading some info but after watching, the motor never has a problem, the belt slips. So a complete lube job will be in order there with the belt kit installed. It played the tape beautifully until the automatic features realized the problem.
Heres some nasty shots of the 701. I am still amazed at the weight
of these old machines. You have to appreciate them more after really getting your hands on them. Many of us saw these units in the shops, albeit Pacific Stereo or some PX, but I never had to lift a 701 or similar units and never experienced it. I thought my Kenwood GX was something else. I got to say though I just bartered my Kenwood Eleven II to a friend I grew up with and now he wants all Kenwood gear. The bug bit him with his first quality unit from the heyday and our teenage years. He has never even seen a unit like the Kenwood except for Emerson, SoundDesign or older all in one units like most all of us had or could afford.. I'm rambling now but soon this stuff will be gone. I'll be gone soon too but there will be people in love with this stuff. Maybe not many, but many of the units will be gone too if we don't keep them alive. Especially with tech men like MarktheFixer, Echowars, ect. gone in the future with us. I'm getting to emotional now its time to move on.
So here's a couple shots of the outside conditions as soon as the wood cabinet came off. Pristine black hood was a delight except for the dust that made it through the first wood cabinet but it still got 30 something years of atmosphere of a few occupants living conditions inside. If you could diagnose it there surely would be Cheeseburgers, Pizzas, Bacon and Beer in and on it. This thing is going to be a tougher one than the 900.
I'll get some photos of the cleaned 900 up soon and the uncleaned 1980 along with the inside of this 701.
If you open these pics with a quality viewer like IrfanView or similar, you can see approximately what I'm seeing. Before I close, it powered up and the capstan was spinning away. I suppose thats what should be happening, its time to read the owner's manual and look for a repair manual as well for my orders.
P.S. Blackthorne 64 I don't see much in Elkhart either. These little bargain hut places are overpriced when they sell ANYTHING. I was told and believe that the Goodwill in^&*()#$, IN (PM me)is a great place to score stuff you read about on sites like this. But several people know about it and I don't get over there. I'd love to but I I've been looking the whole area for a couple of years but I got lucky, the folks I've ran into could just as easily sold it to someone else. For me, these are scores from dreams for me really. Although I think I paid less in the dream. I have bigger dreams but they haven't been fullfilled just yet. Also, we all get lucky once or twice.

Hi DaWoofer,
Here is a Brochure with specs on these.
http://www.kallhovde.com/pioneer/pioneer78-79blores.pdf

Have fun with your dream equipment. Nice Score!

That's a cool site. By the homepage it looks like he covers some of the great Japanese stereos we love. Thought I'd get a few more pics up on some disassembly. I want to show the frame design for support. Don't see that everyday in these old stereos. And a couple of face shots. This stuff is in pretty decent shape considering where I pulled them from.
So far the faceplate washers are rusted (metal wise) but they look like common (old) washers. EV used these same things on my Sentry IIA cabinets. They hold the speakerboard on. So I think I should be able to find some shinny new ones, I hope. Well here's some pics.

I was about to tackle the grim and I saw this and thought you all should see it before its gone. These babies were neglected. The fellow who had them said he got them back after being with his ex wife for the last 15 years. I don't know how she stored them but I'm betting not much better than where I got them. I didn't take a pic of the prongs on the cord but one of the two prongs has a strip of oxidized copper around it from the years plugged in or just from the copper receptacle at some point in its life. I've never seen that on my old stereos before either. Well, here's more grime time. I had to use the Dremel on the 900 and I still need to buff some. I had to use a wire type brush to get through it and I can see corrosion that got through the plating or dipped chrome. So this 701 will be tougher I guessing. Although, these might be plastic.

Wow that is grimy! My gosh.

Pioneer RT-701

Not to worry!
Those RT- series of Pioneer reel to reels were made to last. Very resilent. Built like tanks. :yes: Believe me after a thorough cleaning and polishing she'll look fantastic! Lets just hope that after all is done (cleaning) that she'll come back to life when plugged in and hopefully operate and perform as it should, that is if the heads are in exceptional condition? If not well, good luck trying to replace them (difficult yes, impossible no) or have them relapped (that is if they didn't get that far gone).:scratch2: