Stereos and Supras

 Been keeping pretty busy with my never-ending list of projects. BUT....it's good to keep busy in retirement, or your brain and body turn to Jell-O. 

And I don't like Jell-O.

One of the main reasons I've been "running slower" than usual is my vision is deteriorating due to cataracts. I'm going in on Wednesday to have my right eye taken care of, and they'll do the left eye a month later. SLW had this done last year, and sailed right through it. She (and the Doctors) tell me I'll be amazed at how much better I'll be able to see. Right now I'm about 20/100 in the right eye, and 20/40 in the left. I can still do most things, but reading, typing, and detail work have taken a hit the last month. So I figured I owed my "readers" a bigger post than my usual dribblings.

Anywhoo.....

The repair/cleaning of the Fisher RS-2010 is coming along nicely. It took a while to source the incandescent panel and indicator lights, and now I can replace them. This radio was introduced in the Fisher 1978 catalog, and while I don't know the exact year this one was made, most of the indicator lamps look original; Very dark, silvered inside the bulb, and they were all dim. It's been repaired at least once in the past, and some of the repair work wasn't up to (my) standards. It's also a bit different that the Service Manual shows.

Ancient, darkened panel lamp. Not even in a socket! The leads are individually soldered to a wire terminal coming out of the glass envelope. Very time consuming to hunt down proper replacements and put the new ones in.

The other lamps used or the "Function" indication were equally bizarre. They were bigger than "Grain-O-Wheat" lamps, and had wire leads.

 And there's a whole flock of them living behind the front panel. Almost looks like they're nesting.....

The different colored lead wires are from previous repairs. Fisher held the bulbs in the holders using something like rubber cement. The previous repair apparently didn't have any, as some of the bulbs had little strips of electrical tape wrapped around them to wedge them into the holder........duuuuhhhh.....I can't let this out of my shop with these "issues".

And since the Service Manual differs from the "As-Built", I had to make a new diagram of how the dial cord is strung on this unit, and not Go By The Book. And the problem with the tuning being all wonky was that this little bit dropped out of place,

Which caused the shaft on the Main Tuning Capacitor to wobble, and fall out of place as I was checking it.

This pretty much made restringing the dial cord mandatory, along with all the little pulleys and things being gritty, stuck, loose, and other ailments.

 Oh. and then there's this:

What is it? Dunno. Not on the views of the chassis or board pictorials, and if it's on the schematic, it's not designated as being off the main board. I'm going to have to see what it's connected to. I had to pull it loose, as this capacitor is one of the ones running at ~95% of it's rated voltage. 

I'll take my "eye patch" time to do easy stuff on this like finish cleaning some items on it, and then I'll get back on it full-bore. Chasing down the parts on this unit has taken about double the amount of time it usually takes. The capacitors are easy-peasy, and it took some time to find the current replacements for the previous replacements for the obsolete transistors, but tracking down suitable replacements for the lamps was a bit frustrating, as these all run on 8 VAC, a bit unusual for indicator lamps.

Annnnnd.... Work continues on the Supra. I finally got the Intake Runners off the engine, and that makes getting to the starter, fuel filter, fuel hoses, water hoses. and wiring harnesses on that side of the engine much easier. Took a good hour of cleaning greasy mud off that side of the engine before I pulled the starter because the bolts were buried!

The two main battery cables are out , so I can document them and send the info to the place that makes new ones. 

The remaining cable I'm updating in the harness is the one that runs from the alternator output stud to the new junction box I fabbed up to replace the disintegrating original one. I'll get a larger gauge cable with ring lugs from the people doing the others. It's the main junction point between the high-current battery lead to the rest of the car. It's where the two main Fusible Links are located, and was really nasty looking. It's also where the high-current lead to the new fan controller will go. And I'm experimenting a bit to build a "Soft Start" control, rather than slamming a relay closed and whacking my electrical system with a 40 Amp surge as the fans speed up. More on that to follow.

Hope y'all have a good, safe week!