I do the same thing with units and this type of retainers. Undo the uppers and the glass with the rubber seals flips out enough that you can just lift out the glass, clean it and reinstall.
Avery's "First" Maker: The TA-800
- Thread starter dcgillespie
- Start date
Yep. I've done that before as well. But in this case, the glass was really stuck in place, and since it's one of those million dollar parts, I surely didn't want to take the chance breaking it. As I said earlier, even with the backing plate and all four mount clips off, I still had to carefully loosen each corner a little bit at a time until it finally broke free. It did not release willingly. If I had it to do all over again in this particular case, the only thing I would do differently is simply un-solder the power wires to the dial glass lamps. Instead of doing that, I simply unscrewed all four of the contact clip assemblies that the lamps mount in. But those screws and nut are so incredibly small, and not a single thread longer than they need to be when tightened. The longest part of the reassembly process was remounting the lamp clips again (isolated from the plate so as not to short the circuit). Looking back, simply un-soldering the power leads to the left lamp clips would have been an easier way to go. In any event, if someone at some point in the past even tried to clean the glass, I'm sure its stuck-in-place condition discouraged any further effort quickly enough. Anyhoo, some before and after pics:
Interesting that with all the crud off the rear of the glass, there's nothing for the light to illuminate against except the silk screened lettering, so the blue tent of the original new LEDs is much more palatable. It do make a difference!!
Dave
Interesting that with all the crud off the rear of the glass, there's nothing for the light to illuminate against except the silk screened lettering, so the blue tent of the original new LEDs is much more palatable. It do make a difference!!
Dave
Matt -- Thanks for checking. I think it's a safe conclusion then that Fisher never converted this model over to the alternate driver tube configuration. It would be interesting to know if they even produced the full run (by serial numbers) of the units that the known Service Manual indicates it covers. The serial number on Rob's unit is 12944C. Matt -- Steve -- if you and everybody else with one of these units could supply the serial numbers of your unit(s), then similar to the gathering of the 1800 serial numbers, we might get some kind of indication as to just how many of these suckers were actually produced.
Thanks for any info ya'll can provide! (a little southern lingo there for ya).
Dave
Thanks for any info ya'll can provide! (a little southern lingo there for ya).
Dave
Oh, so now you tell me!! 
Pray tell Gadget, where in the heck were you able to come up with a spare? Gotta be a donor unit...... You do know that because you have it, you'll never need it -- but if you didn't have it, you'd be searching to the ends of the earth until the end of time to find one!
Dave
Pray tell Gadget, where in the heck were you able to come up with a spare? Gotta be a donor unit...... You do know that because you have it, you'll never need it -- but if you didn't have it, you'd be searching to the ends of the earth until the end of time to find one!
Dave
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Wow!!! What a difference!!! Unbelievable how good that looks. The cosmetic condition of this unit just shot up several grades! Just wait till it goes into its mahogany cabinet! Dave what kind of felt did you use and what kind of shape was the original in?
Gadget, I've been looking for a spare forever. Long before a restoration was put into motion! I thought I'd have to buy a beater TA800 if I ever broke the glass.If you had broken it, I've got a spare
Definitely looks better with the haze gone.
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Steve, I'm hoping this thread tempts you to send Dave your TA800 as well. Then there can be 2 Fisher/Gillespie Hybrids!I don't know, that first picture kind of grows on ya (like fungus).
Gadget got a 2 for one deal when he got his TA-600. It came with a non working beater parts unit.
Dave has restored quite a few of my units, but the TA-800 was restored by sony6060 a few years back, and probably not correctly. Dave pushes me to do my own work when possible since he knows how much enjoyment I get from it. My TA-600 got his full treatment and rates right up there with my X-202 for best sound.
Rob -- The TA used two different products associated with the dial glass: Fairly dense rubber strips that act as a seat for the glass to rest against when in place (which is what the glass was stuck to). The same rubber was used on the front of the glass at the ends, to prevent any light from seeping out the sides of the front plate cutout when mounted in place. These rubber pieces were found to be in perfect shape -- not dried or brittle or cracked. They looked like the day they were installed. Then, along the bottom front side of the glass, there was a strip of rubberized cork to prevent any light shining loosely behind the front plate from emerging out between the bottom of the dial glass, and the back of the front plate. This product was all dried and cracked, and came off in broken pieces as it was removed. Look at the third pic down in my post #80. You'll see a pile of the stuff on the bench just to the left of the receiver. That's what was used along the bottom of the glass.
I did not use a felt product along the bottom of the glass, but a silicone rubber stick on product that I modify. It is designed to compress when pushed against thanks to the seal having an open air core. For this application however, the pressure required to compress the seal is more than I like, so I carefully cut out a small strip of the seal along one side of its sealing surface where it attaches to its backing strip. This allows the seal to compress much more easily so that it perfectly fills the space between the front of the glass and the back of the front plate, without causing any undo pressure against the dial glass. And, because it's silicone, it will stay compliant forever, and be highly resistant to the heat of the unit as well. I generally stay away from foam rubber as a sealer as I've found that it dries out loosing it's compression over time, and is not as effective in blocking the light. I think that's why the original product was a cork based seal.
Dave
I did not use a felt product along the bottom of the glass, but a silicone rubber stick on product that I modify. It is designed to compress when pushed against thanks to the seal having an open air core. For this application however, the pressure required to compress the seal is more than I like, so I carefully cut out a small strip of the seal along one side of its sealing surface where it attaches to its backing strip. This allows the seal to compress much more easily so that it perfectly fills the space between the front of the glass and the back of the front plate, without causing any undo pressure against the dial glass. And, because it's silicone, it will stay compliant forever, and be highly resistant to the heat of the unit as well. I generally stay away from foam rubber as a sealer as I've found that it dries out loosing it's compression over time, and is not as effective in blocking the light. I think that's why the original product was a cork based seal.
Dave
Dave,
Perfect execution as usual! Taking something as simple as this gasket and finding a simpler and more effective solution. Glad my first Fisher is in your expert hands. And it just looks spectacular! Hope you're enjoying its crisp sound through your Cornwalls.
Thanks for everything you're doing.
Rob
Well the new 7199 tube arrived today, and it's a no-go. This sucker hums nearly as loud as the music, and of course since it appears after the volume control in the circuit, the setting of the volume control does not affect the hum level. It's just there all the time which you can hear even outside the listening room. The vendor has offered a refund or replacement, but this shows just how tough it's getting to be to find just a decent working example of this tube.
Dave
Dave
I have (3) 7199's here if you think you'd like to try them.
Well that just sucks Hind teat. Wish I had a couple of 7199's to send down. I could see for the sake of experimentation possibly changing it over to 7247's "ala" the late version TA-600's, but then a long term study would be needed to access stability and operational parameters before putting the modification out for general use. But being a customers unit, you tend to not want to experiment on them. Even if you DO get the ok for a change over, like you said earlier a few posts up you'd have to back track a couple stages to start with and go from there. And from what i understood from the post it would be a quite involved changeover.
From post #76:
ROB: I'm not totally advocating a change to the 7247, but with the current bunch of 7199's causing the problems they are, and the fact that a case is already being completed for it, Dave would be the guy to do it if it was found to be advantageous from an operational standpoint. But, on the other side of the coin, it would seem to me to be a very involved and complicated modification just to get a fairly comparable result to a TA-600. And would be quite expensive from a standpoint of labor costs. Ultimately it's up to you and Dave to determine whether it's worth the cost of R&D and then the actual changeover. Personally if it were mine, I would think hard and long over this one, unless Dave can come up with some 7199's that don't hum at reasonable costs. And as the 7199's diminish in numbers the costs will only go up.
But what ever you do, I know that you will do the right thing for this FISHER. Even if it's only a non-working "hanger queen" that sits on the shelf and looks pretty. And that would be fine with a lot of us who collect these whether for aesthetic or operational reasons or both.
Hang in there. Dave will take care of you and give you all options with the Risk/Benefits of each option.
Larry
From post #76:
ROB: I'm not totally advocating a change to the 7247, but with the current bunch of 7199's causing the problems they are, and the fact that a case is already being completed for it, Dave would be the guy to do it if it was found to be advantageous from an operational standpoint. But, on the other side of the coin, it would seem to me to be a very involved and complicated modification just to get a fairly comparable result to a TA-600. And would be quite expensive from a standpoint of labor costs. Ultimately it's up to you and Dave to determine whether it's worth the cost of R&D and then the actual changeover. Personally if it were mine, I would think hard and long over this one, unless Dave can come up with some 7199's that don't hum at reasonable costs. And as the 7199's diminish in numbers the costs will only go up.
But what ever you do, I know that you will do the right thing for this FISHER. Even if it's only a non-working "hanger queen" that sits on the shelf and looks pretty. And that would be fine with a lot of us who collect these whether for aesthetic or operational reasons or both.
Hang in there. Dave will take care of you and give you all options with the Risk/Benefits of each option.
Larry