First Receiver recap/restore, need advice

[ocdecio]

I always resisted working on receivers mainly because I don't have the proper equipment (or knowledge for that matter) to align them if I have to. However yesterday I got this beauty for a reasonable price and couldn't resist. As I opened it I noticed it has never been worked on. It is in real need of a cleanup and deoxit, as well as having the lamps replaced - no biggie.

I proceeded to recap the tone board, very easy to work on. Now I am looking at the tuner section and I am thinking - should I attempt to recap this or is it more risk than it is worth? I never restrung a receiver, and I am really fearful I may get something out of alignment and never come back to what is basically a functioning receiver at this point. I see it has a couple of tantalums and the usual electrolytics but I am not sure I want/need to take the risk.

Any advice is very welcome.

 

[Steven Tate]

I always recap all tuner boards, and I have never seen one have worse reception after doing that. If it has decent reception before, it will likely be as good or better reception after. Doesn’t mean a good alignment might not help, but it probably won’t be because of anything you did. Having said that, There are only a few caps on the AM side of the front end board. On this unit, I might leave them alone if AM is working decent.

 

[ocdecio]

Thank you Steve. I'll leave the board alone for now, will do all others.

 

[rBuckner]

There are no electrolytics in the tuner section to change, hence no effect. There is one of those horrible light purple Panasonic caps I can see over in the AM section. If you do have to solder near the dial cord, wrap some aluminum foil over the cord - it may prevent a disaster! But that may keep you out of our beloved Flat Forehead Society!!

 

[ocdecio]

There are no electrolytics in the tuner section to change, hence no effect. There is one of those horrible light purple Panasonic caps I can see over in the AM section. If you do have to solder near the dial cord, wrap some aluminum foil over the cord - it may prevent a disaster! But that may keep you out of our beloved Flat Forehead Society!!

What concerns me is that this board is elevated on the chassis and it doesn't have access from underneath which means I would have to mess with the cord - I thought about turning the dial totally to one side, unscrew the wheel, work the board and screw the wheel back but it sound a little too dangerous for my yet nascent skills LOL

It does have one tantalum and some other 1uf electrolytics.

 

[rBuckner]

What I do on these is tape down the dial cord to the drum and the furthest pulleys away from where the tuner front end is on these integrated front ends with the other circuitry. On the 22xx models that have a pulley on the signal meter lamp housing I tape those down too, or like 2325's that have a pulley on the side chassis gusset that has to come out to get at the FM multiplex board. In your case the cord will have to come off some pulley(s) to get the front end to move enough to work on. Use "real" masking tape, not the blue stuff - it's not sticky enough to take the movement nor last very long.

 

[ocdecio]

Thank you for the advice with the masking tape, I hadn't thought about that. I'll certainly keep that in mind and try should I decide to restore that board.

 

[goldswimmerb]

I always resisted working on receivers mainly because I don't have the proper equipment (or knowledge for that matter) to align them if I have to. However yesterday I got this beauty for a reasonable price and couldn't resist. As I opened it I noticed it has never been worked on. It is in real need of a cleanup and deoxit, as well as having the lamps replaced - no biggie.

I proceeded to recap the tone board, very easy to work on. Now I am looking at the tuner section and I am thinking - should I attempt to recap this or is it more risk than it is worth? I never restrung a receiver, and I am really fearful I may get something out of alignment and never come back to what is basically a functioning receiver at this point. I see it has a couple of tantalums and the usual electrolytics but I am not sure I want/need to take the risk.

Any advice is very welcome.


View attachment 2296635 View attachment 2296636

I usually leave the Tuner Cap board on these Marantz units with the board/cap combo. The only circuit on that board with Electrolytic capacitors is the AM tuner, which for the most part, won't be used, however it is connected to the power supply and could stress it if/when things go wrong.

That being said, I have, in the past, used take to hold the string taut on the pulleys and then secured the string to the main pulley to gain access.