Thorens Td165 with some issues....thoughts?

[E Norman]

Hey everybody thanks for any and all of your help ahead of time. Hopefully I don't ramble too much but here it goes:

I have a Td165 that I recently purchased off Craigslist. The audio cables had been upgraded slightly and the ground wire removed. There are some scrapes on the plate where it looks like the suspension was messed up. I have a Nikko NR320 receiver and some KLH floor speakers.

I took the table to a reputable local hifi store to get it checked out and to have a new Clearaudio Concept cartridge installed. He put on a new belt, oiled everything up, and said he looked at and tuned suspension. It turns out that the speed was running too fast on 33 and too slow on 45. He basically said I need to just leave it on 33 because when I put it on 45, the belt will rise and then will have to be manually lowered to put the speed back down to 33. He couldn't continue to do work and keep the ticket affordable. Disappointed, I took it home to give it a spin.

Plugging the table in, I notice a small hum across both channels that only starts to show up when the volume is 4/10. When the table spins, I think I can hear the belt moving around the spindle to turn the platter. When the needle drops, the hum all but disappears. To my ears the cartridge and table sound pretty darn good but the speed on 45, the hum at the beginning and the fact that I can hear the spindle when the speakers are off are some things I would like to fix. Any suggestions? I will upload pics when I am done with work.

Thanks again!

 

[E Norman]

Bump

 

[ddarch]

Possible the belt pathway is contaminated with oil? Clean all those surfaces with isopropryl.

Belt is critical...I would start with a Thorens logo belt...several sellers on eBay.

Once you have that, if you still have issues, of the three motor mount screws. the one by the drive platter has a spring on the underside, and so adjusts the angle/tilt of the motor. That can also influence the speed change. (But get the right belt first)

D

 

[E Norman]

Thanks for the response! The belt that was installed is a thorens logo belt that visually looks brand new. I haven't tried the screws yet and definitely don't want to mess up its ability to play 33....any thoughts?

 

[muovimies]

You can lift off the outer platter and then install it back upside down - also place the mat and a record on top of it to have correct weight similar to what rests there when you actually play a record. Now you can see what happens with the belt when the TT is turned on and the speeds are changed. It should ride in the middle of the 'crown' of the pulley - the pulley is shaped so that there's a ticker part which keeps the belt in place, the thickest point should be in the middle of the belt. If not, you probably need to adjust the motor tilt which ddarch already mentioned. You might need to loosen up the other two screws, then adjust the closest one to platter until you get it right and retighten the other too. It's possible on 45rpm the belt is scraping against the speed change leveler which guides the belt to the right part of the pulley, that would also explain why the table runs slow at 45rpm. I can't remember off the top of my head if that belt guide can be adjusted, or if it gets out of whack only if it's bent, in which case you'd have to carefully bend it back - but only go there if all the adjustments are ok.

 

[E Norman]

Thanks for the response! Sorry, the notification for this thread seems to have been turned off.

Update:

So I did some more tweaking and got the suspension cleaned up but the speed is still slightly off. The motor spindle looked a little wobbley while running so I raised that on the pin by about 1/8 inch. 33 runs visually close to dead on but on 45, the strobe runs slightly clockwise; I think Muovimies hit the nail on the head. I think the belt is rubbing on the bottom flange of the speed change and that the rubbing is also causing belt noise. I have no idea if the lever is bent due to inexperience with the table.

On a couple side notes:
1. I was hoping to use the thorens stabilizer and retune the suspension to compensate for its weight. Will this kill the motor? Anyone have any thoughts?
2. Anyone have any tp60 headshells laying around that need a new home?


Thanks again for all the help!