** Hi,

do any people here regularly attempt to fix these things or just replace
them ?

I get a lot of dead and bad sounding units - used to be only very old ones
but now most are in new looking condition.

Accutronics ( now Accutronics / Belton) have made a couple of major blunders
in recent years - first they added little white plugs to the drive and
pickup coils and then they added a foam plastic impact pad under the
springs.

The white plugs were a disaster since they impacted at the ends of the metal
box and caused the hair fine wire on the pick up coils to break. The foam
plastic pad was a time bomb - eventually it perished and turned into fine,
sticky particles that coated the springs and damped the torsional vibrations
so much there was no more reverb.

I have found good fixes for the white plug ones and ones with broken feed
wires and even ones that have the tiny magnets resting in contact with the
laminations of the drive and pickup coils.

Cleaning springs coated with sticky foam particles with solvent ( even
Acetone ) has not proved a complete success - the resulting sound is still
sub standard.

Guitarists love these things but I wish they would treat them with more care
as many I see have been subjected to massive impacts - over and over. I know
this for sure when I see lose and missing steel pins that are intended to
limit movement of the sub frame !!

The fix or this last one is to drill out the holes and fit 4x30mm size bolts
in place.

Bloody heck !!



..... Phil