1950s Magnificent Magnavox HI-FI Console issues
 

Hello everyone, today a buddy of mine who has been a regular customer of mine as far as bringing me stuff to repair for him for his booth in a local antique mall has brought for me to work on a 1950s Magnavox Console that has a seized up record player (the power switch/reject switch doesn't work and neither does the speed control switch) and it also had a partially seized up function switch and a fully seized up bass control switch as well.

Anyways Part of the record player is attached to a switch that's mounted to the cabinet on the inside of the record player housing area and I can't figure out how to get that switch unmounted from the cabinet so I can take the record player out of the cabinet so I can tear it down and relube it, any ideas as to how I could get the switch out of the cabinet?

Also when I was trying to free up the bass control switch I ended up accidentally busting it (the wafer which the switch would ride on to make the different bass setting connections broke in half and it seems to be made of a thin wafer of plywood) and I'm not sure how to go about fixing the switch, should I just try and find a replacement switch for it on ebay from a similar Magnavox chassis that's being parted out or is there a way to repair the broken contact wafer and have the switch still work? Also what amplifier does this thing use? Is it one of the more well known and famous Magnavox amplifiers or is it another one that they used that wasn't so well known? The tube compliment on it if it helps is 4 6V6GTs with a 12AT7 tube and a 6V6GT with a 6AT6 and 2 5U4GA Rectifier tubes.

Any assistance would be helpful.

Thanks,

Levi

Your amp might be one of the bi amplified ones, with 4 6v6s for bass, and a separate amp for midrange and treble using a single or push pull 6v6. Many magnavox amps were bi amplified, before they went to stereo. Ive seen them with push pull 6v6 for the treble channel, is yours missing a 6v6? Looks like an empty socket in the photo.

I can see from the picture that your switch is just held on by that hex nut at the shaft. Just remove the hex nut.

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BUT...it looks like that might be one of those INVERTED "nuts", that need a SPECIAL tool--to properly remove--as they are HOLLOW_-with a nut-shape INSIDE. I just use a large straight screwdriver, put it inside the nut-shape, and rotate it till the "nut" comes loose...

You don't need any "SPECIAL" tool for those. All you need is an expanded needle-nose pliers to turn the nut.

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I said "properly" remove...of course...WE have to come up with ways to "Macgyver" them out...

That's exactly why I had asked if anyone knew of a way to get the knob loose because it DOES have the hex nut installed inverted with the outside of the nut facing into the wood of the cabinet and no way to remove it without damaging the cabinet which is still in pristine condition. one thing I noticed is that the panels on top of the radio for covering the record player are pieces of glass that are reverse painted to look like wood which I thought was weird and kind of unusual.
Also that empty "tube socket" is actually the power supply plug for the tuner section of the radio.
Also I was able to manhandle the record player out of the cabinet a little bit to get a view of the bottom side of the record player mechanism and sure enough it looks like it will be a nightmare to try and service it! :yikes:
Also nobody answered my question about how to deal with the broken bass control pot.

I don't have a pair of needle nose pliers that would work with removing this nut. all I have are the really fine needle nose pliers that are only good for removing small nuts and bolts that are about 1/4" or smaller not ones that are 5/8" in diameter or larger.

EDIT: I think they have those nuts glued into place because I tried both a screwdriver and a pair of needle nose pliers and the nut wouldn't budge I think there has to be a way to remove the pot from the back side of the panel without damaging the pot.

Can you post a picture of the switch? I think I know what you're talking about but I'm not sure. Is is one of those sliding terminal strip type switches?

If that's the case, I've had bad luck trying to repair those. You could hypothetically remove the wafer from the slider, epoxy it together, and put it back in, but my experience is they're pretty fragile.

I worked on a Magnavox stereo that was built in 1974, that had those inverted palnuts. The assembler at the factory, tightened the nuts, so tight that there was NO WAY IN H*LL, that I could remove them, without the proper tool. :thumbsdn:

Its a rotary switch that has 4 positions that's numbered 1, 2, 3, and High.

Here's a picture of the bass tone control in question, see below.

That's what I was thinking, so I'll probably just have to work on it the best I can with it just flipped over inside the cabinet.

I even went to the local Magnavox dealer to rent one. There was an old sourpuss technician, that had one. I offered to post a $20.00 deposit on it. No dice! I tried ordering one, through them, NLA. If it was available, it was something like $4.00, made special by Xcelite, for Magnavox. Not available through Xcelite.
I can see why the guy was that way, working on Mvx TV's for forty years. :sigh:

I think that it should be fairly easy to fabricate a suitable tool by grinding flats on the outside of a smaller socket or Xcelite driver. Likely a 1/2" size would work fine. I made this example in about 5 minutes... wrong size, but it shows what could be done.

jr

the only problem with that is that I don't have access to an angle grinder or a bench grinder, my dad has one of each but I think he would need to know the specs first before he could do anything, like what size of socket I need and where to grind down the socket.

UPDATE: I did manage to get the switch out of the cabinet, but I had to use a large screwdriver that I wedged into the support posts of the switch and gently loosen the switch that way and then loosen the switch by hand until I could push the switch and the nut out of its mount and then I took some pliers and then loosened the nut the rest of the way and then popped the switch out of the cabinet.

Also does anyone have a spare speed changer switch for a late 1950s Magnavox/Collaro Turntable? It looks something like what's pictured in the photo posted below, the one on the record player I'm working on is stripped out and also the retention spring is broken so because of that the knob just spins around freely on the speed changer mechanism, it got stripped out because I was trying to operate the speed change mechanism while it was seized up and so because of that the resistance from the speed changing mechanism was enough to strip the knob out and break the retention spring. Just send me a PM on here if you think you might have a spare knob I could have.

Thanks!