"Greg Bailey" wrote in message
...
No, all I got was a piece of felt, a brass weight and a screw. I've been
trying to find a diagram of that particular pickup online, to use as
reference, without any success so far.


Have a look he

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cd4.htm

The optical pickup is the lens you see which is on a sled which moves
horizontally as the CD spins. As in the picture in the above link, the
pickup head is often attached to a small circuit board with some
focus/tracking components. You can actually see a screw in the picture,
although yours might be somewhat different it shouldn't be rocket science to
open it up, remove a screw holding the laser assembly to the attached PCB,
and install the brass one. Be careful not to move any of the pots (they'll
probably have a drop of adhesive keeping them from moving) as that will mess
up your focus/tracking/alignment. As far as the hunk of felt, I assume it's
got sticky backing on it on one side? When you open up the player, there
is, to use Sony's term, a "clamper" which grabs the CD, allowing the spindle
motor to spin it. You need whatever is attached to the spindle motor
(called "disks drive" in the picture) to have friction on the disc, so I'd
think the felt washer would go on the other side (which would be the top),
but it should be obvious where the washer will fit once you get things
opened up.

Don't worry about this one: it's not at all a technical repair and if you
are careful, it'd be pretty hard to break anything.

Dave