my boombox is out for delivery... 👀
i ended up not taking pictures since i didn't work with much free time today, but i already refurbished the two speakers, there was a lot of rust and dirt inside!
now the main unit needs work: tape is dead, aux has a pin stuck in RCA jack and switches are all scratchy
other than that i'm really happy to work on this and i'm really glad i got the speakers working like new! i even replaced the wires that connect it to the main unit since they were really tatty and already patched mismatching
AND!! plot twist! the seller of this JVC/Victor one with *minidisc in* ended up messaging me JUST as the 80s boombox arrived at my home
Anyway that one is arriving saturday now, so uh, now i have both
couldn't wait until the weekend so i used my lunch hour to tear into the boombox's main unit
- pots and switches are scratchy, applied liberal amounts of contact cleaner
- got a broken pin unstuck from aux jack
- did a surface clean of all plastics and boards
i also took the antenna out because it was stuck in place with electrical tape and barely getting any FM signal, going to refurbish it with a new screw to hold it
unfortunately i don't have the belts to fix the tape deck but at least that seems to be it's only problem
first time using the super glue baking soda method, worked so well!
i'm calling this "done enough" for now but there's still some quirks to work out
- volume pot still kinda scratchy, maybe replace
- FM still won't tune, probably circuitry
- left speaker has bad hum
but if you're just plugging things into aux, and at enough volume, this thing sounds magnificent. i'm definitely happy to have it in this state right now
there was so, so, so much dirt and grime inside this boombox, i'm amazed how well it was working despite it all
i think if i take another quick break from work later today to put all clean and dried parts back together the tape deck should be the only thing not working