As you know, I stumbled upon an Akai 4000ds mkii rtr machine in a local charity shop, less than a week after I sold the Sony to partially fund the new milling machine.
after vacillitating for 10 minutes I bought it, then as mi dads house was closest and I'd have to carry the bloody thing from the shop, I deposited it there.
This is what I got.
Charity shop Akai 4000ds mk2 by
anthony cresswell, on Flickr
I then went and did the shopping I was actually supposed to be doing, and came back to collect it.
Before that, we plugged it into mi dads system to see if it worked, and were greeted by a godawful noise which sounded terminal...... not a good start.
there was however, a little chirp of music when the switches were pressed this way and that in random order to try to coax some life out of it, so there was a modicum of hope.
It was a bit cosmetically challenged, but that was the least of the worries.
Fast forward a couple of hours, I pulled the fascia off it to have a look inside.
at this
Charity shop akai 4000ds mk2 by
anthony cresswell, on Flickr
Its a bit less complicated than the 377, but similar in design. Interestingly, all the rubber parts were in rather good nick, not all hardened like the equivalent Sony parts. The charity shop lady said it had been her grandads, and had been in the living room as long as she could remember so this may have been due to it being in a centrally heated environment for most of its life rather than a loft since 1985.
I wanted to get at all the pots and switches first, and get them all cleaned out with servisol. Ten minute job, followed by much switch clicking to work the cleaner round them. I couldn't get at the pots from the front, but that could come later as the pots are on the record side, I just wanted to see if it played.
I then screwed it back together and tested it. Lo and behold, it played no problem. Tried the first tape which was full of soul, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, plenty of good stuff. Second one was full of Tina Turner.......... Not wanting to be subjected to any more 80's Tina, I didn't play the third one.
I left it alone for a couple of days, and being at a loose end today while waiting for parts for a build came back to it to get at the pots.
The whole mech comes out of the cabinet via 6 bolts, 4 in the back hidden by the feet and 2 in the base. The last one wouldn't come out without being castigated and threatened with the grinder, but I got there with it eventually.
Turns out that for some reason the mech chassis had rusted around where the bolts went through, but peculiarly, not anywhere else or on the inside of the same areas...
Charity shop akai 4000ds mk2 by
anthony cresswell, on Flickr
So, access was gained to the rec level pots, (nobles of all things
) and I could check for bulging caps and inspect the belts.
no dodgy caps in sight, and the belts are fine if a little loose. I'll get some replacements shortly.
Nailed it back together, and that done, I tried to record something.
Oh dear.
There were dropouts all over the place, the levels were up and down like a yoyo, and It came out as a garbled mess.......
So I cleaned the heads with my last bit of isopropyl and tried again. Not quite as bad, but it got as bad if not worse pretty quickly.
I then downloaded the service manual to see what that said, and had a read. Coming back to it half an hour later, I noticed that underneath the machine there was a load of nasty looking flakey dust, and that it was reluctant to rewind. Luckily it was stood on top of my A3 weekly planner which is white paper, otherwise I wouldn't have noticed anything. The tape itself was the problem, it was shedding so badly that there was a tide mark on the heads and a load of dropped oxide after recording a two and a half minute song. It was also stuck up to the eyeballs, which is why it was reluctant to rewind. This was the third tape which I hadn't tried
So I threaded the soul tape, played it through to the end of the recorded stuff and tried again.
recorded no problem .
So, it's fully functional. I also resprayed all the bIts that were flakey and nasty with some etch primer then satin black which has tidied it up no end
Charity shop akai 4000ds mk2 by
anthony cresswell, on Flickr
Next jobs are to turn a new aluminium cover for the pinch roller as it has gone walkies and I'm not paying out a fortune for another one, and to sort out the two chunks out of the right hand side of the cabinet.
And to get some more belts, and some more isopropyl to clean the tape path. Then when the belts come I'll fit them and then give the moving parts a good clean, and treat the rubber parts with rubber renue
Charity shop akai 4000ds mk2 by
anthony cresswell, on Flickr
Onwards!