Fasturd
Active Member
I recently resurrected a Sony SCD-777ES that the original owner thought was a door stop/Boat Anchor. Had all the issues. Wouldn't read SACDs. Would sometimes read Redbook CDs. Would show no disc as an error. It would lock up and not open the door, requiring a power down and restart. The advice i found on the "google" mostly said the optics were dead but the fact that it would randomly play discs lead me to believe it was something else. Another interesting trait it had was once it warmed up for an hour or so it would start up CDs more regularly and even load a SACD once and a while, maybe the plastic gears were expanding a bit. I cleaned and lubed the rails, it maybe improved 10%. I bought a new stabilizer because the one that came with it was aftermarket and poorly made and wobbled. I gained another 15%! I kept researching and eventually I came across a guy who posted that the drive gears for the sled shrink over time and bind on their shafts. This causes too much drag and the discs cannot be scanned and initialized properly. His fix was careful reaming of the center of the big white gears to get them to spin freely. I removed the gears by taking of the small plastic lock washers. read that again SMALL! A dental pick and a razor blade worked for me. With the lock washers removed I had to carefully rock both gears off their shafts. They would still spin but they were definitely very tight. The black gear in that assembly spun freely and didn't require the modification. I have a set of round diamond files for cleaning contacts one of them fit perfectly for this job and I was able to carefully sand the inner diameter. I checked the fit on the shaft frequently to ensure I didn't go to far. Once they fit well and spun smoothly I cleaned and lubed the shafts and replaced everything. It fired up the first CD at least 50% faster than it ever did before. Same with the first SACD. Don't be intimidated by this procedure if you are basically mechanically inclined it is not difficult. The job requires minimal disassembly just the top cover of the player and the metal cover over the top of the sled. I tested it all night long and it played everything. I let it rest over night in my basement where its pretty cold and it fired right up in the morning and loaded CDs and SACDs. This may not fix every "dead" SCD-777ES out there but it could help a lot of them!
