DarkSaint
New Member
First of all I want to thank this site for helping me out bring back my Sansui 8080 to life. I was lucky enough to get it for free from someone who did not want it. When I first got it the tuner lights, 3/4 of the power lights, and the AUX light were out. After searching this site I managed to fix all this. The only issue was that a lot of the threads I found with the fixes either didn't have pictures or the links had expired. So while I was restoring mine I tried to take pics that may help others.
First thing I did was follow the instructions here to restore the tuner panel lights.
Here is what it looked like after I got the lights back, as you can see some lights are missing and it has an ugly hue to it.
This part was very easy, found the cable, pulled it out of the pin (instructions found on YouTube), and stuck it back into the appropriate place
My bulbs were old and some burned out so after I posted a help thread on this site I was recommended www.dgwojo.com and he was able to hook me up.
To replace the tuner & signal strength bulbs was very easy basically you take off the tuner lights cover (pictured below), only has two screws and the two signal strength covers (pictured top right). Then switch out the fuse lamps with the new LED ones.
Next I took off the knobs and face plate. Has a few screws on top and bottom. It comes off pretty easily. Made sure to set all the knobs to 12 O'clock, so I can easily put it back later on. Now that I had the face plate and buttons off I have the chance for some cleaning. The knobs were very grimy, might of been in a smokers home. They also have many grooves in them so it makes cleaning a bit tricky. I took a shallow bowl and filled it with hot water (not too hot to melt the plastic inside some of the knobs), a teaspoon of Scrubbing Bubbles, and a teaspoon of baking soda and mixed it well. I then put all the knobs in the bowl making sure the water only rises up to the head and doesn't flow into the hole. I left it be for 10min, then I gently scrubbed it with a soft bristle toothbrush. Most of them got clean right away, for a few of them I had to re-submerge them for another 10min and scrub again. Once they where all clean I rinsed them with water and dried them off.
For the face plate I just used Windex to clean it to a shine.
Now it was on to the power meter lights that I had heard are a bitch to change (and they are lol)
Only two screws hold it. Once you get it off the wires behind it don't give you much room to work, but with small hands it's possible.
Unfortunately the bulbs had degraded so much that they were impossible to pull out of the holders. They either disintegrated or broke off in the holder. So I had no choice but to unsolder a few of the wires and pull off the power meter.
the meter is stuck with a few pieces of tape so I cut them and the interior part came off easily
With tweezers I managed to pull out the broken bulbs and I put the meter back. I re-soldered the wires and new LED bulbs and put the meter back, and re-taped it. This process took maybe 2 hours, mostly because of the broken bulbs.
I put everything back together, I cleaned the inside with compressed air and closed it up.
Here is how the receiver look now, as you can see it's got a nicer blue look to it. The soft white LEDs look amazing, the picture doesn't do it justice.
I hope these pics are helpful to someone who might be looking to restore their own one soon.
First thing I did was follow the instructions here to restore the tuner panel lights.
Here is what it looked like after I got the lights back, as you can see some lights are missing and it has an ugly hue to it.
This part was very easy, found the cable, pulled it out of the pin (instructions found on YouTube), and stuck it back into the appropriate place
My bulbs were old and some burned out so after I posted a help thread on this site I was recommended www.dgwojo.com and he was able to hook me up.
To replace the tuner & signal strength bulbs was very easy basically you take off the tuner lights cover (pictured below), only has two screws and the two signal strength covers (pictured top right). Then switch out the fuse lamps with the new LED ones.
Next I took off the knobs and face plate. Has a few screws on top and bottom. It comes off pretty easily. Made sure to set all the knobs to 12 O'clock, so I can easily put it back later on. Now that I had the face plate and buttons off I have the chance for some cleaning. The knobs were very grimy, might of been in a smokers home. They also have many grooves in them so it makes cleaning a bit tricky. I took a shallow bowl and filled it with hot water (not too hot to melt the plastic inside some of the knobs), a teaspoon of Scrubbing Bubbles, and a teaspoon of baking soda and mixed it well. I then put all the knobs in the bowl making sure the water only rises up to the head and doesn't flow into the hole. I left it be for 10min, then I gently scrubbed it with a soft bristle toothbrush. Most of them got clean right away, for a few of them I had to re-submerge them for another 10min and scrub again. Once they where all clean I rinsed them with water and dried them off.
For the face plate I just used Windex to clean it to a shine.
Now it was on to the power meter lights that I had heard are a bitch to change (and they are lol)
Only two screws hold it. Once you get it off the wires behind it don't give you much room to work, but with small hands it's possible.
Unfortunately the bulbs had degraded so much that they were impossible to pull out of the holders. They either disintegrated or broke off in the holder. So I had no choice but to unsolder a few of the wires and pull off the power meter.
the meter is stuck with a few pieces of tape so I cut them and the interior part came off easily
With tweezers I managed to pull out the broken bulbs and I put the meter back. I re-soldered the wires and new LED bulbs and put the meter back, and re-taped it. This process took maybe 2 hours, mostly because of the broken bulbs.
I put everything back together, I cleaned the inside with compressed air and closed it up.
Here is how the receiver look now, as you can see it's got a nicer blue look to it. The soft white LEDs look amazing, the picture doesn't do it justice.
I hope these pics are helpful to someone who might be looking to restore their own one soon.
