Victrola Repair Service - Repair Services
Motor Cleaning: A lthough phonographs are well built and have been working for years, the years are hard on the machinery. Over the years the gears and oil harden becoming a sticky, dirt filled, grinding black mess on the motor. This wears the motor down and hinders it's performance. To send your motor to us, remove the motor from your phonograph. To do this, pull off the turntable, and remove the crank. Take out the corner screws of the motor board and lift it out of the phonograph. The motor will still be attached to the board. If you need help, give us a call and we can walk you through the processes. Send the motor to our shop with the board, we will dismantle and clean the motor, frame and gears in solvent and scrub out all the old grease and dirt. Then, we will re-assemble, re-lubricate and test the machine. It is very important that the motor be sent to us still mounted to your board. If the motor is sent without the board, we can't correctly test for speed variations or the other usual problems that motors have before being serviced. If the motor is sent by itself, then we'll test it to the best of our abilities. If there are further problems that arise from not sending the motor on the board, then the cost of shipping and/or additional parts may be charged to the customer. Price: $98.00 - $135 plus spring cost (cleaning or replacement) Cylinder machines add $35 for cleaning of the topworks gears. Exact pricing will be provided on your Free Estimate.* * Please note: The motor cleaning is a basic price for cleaning the motor. Servicing/lubrication of the mainsprings is extra. Please see the description and the costs above if you have any questions. The motor cleaning service includes the motor and top metal pieces on your board. We'll clean the motor and re-assemble it onto the board. We'll also clean and brush/polish the metal parts on the board (brake, speed control, etc.). Gold plated items will be cleaned and brushed/polished at our discretion. Gold parts are hard to work with due to the thinness of the plating and the usual wear marks found. The Cylinder machine service includes the motor and top works gears and a "light" cleaning of the bedplate. The bedplate restoration/full cleaning or repainting/decaling is an additional charge. For information on Edison bedplate restoration, please see our . Dealer Motor Cleaning: For those looking to sell a phonograph or on a budget, we offer the dealer motor cleaning service. While this is not as extensive or as involved as the full Motor Cleaning, it is far better than nothing and will help the phonograph to operate much better. We clean the governor, wash out the worst of the oil/grease build up on the functioning parts of the motor. Finally we will lube and test the motor. Price: 60.00 - 90.00 depending on how dirty/rusty the motor is. We will give an exact quote during the free estimate. Mainspring Cleanings:Springs come two ways: broken or very dirty. If the springs do wind up or they make a loud thumping noise when unwinding, then this means they are covered with petrified grease and sliding in your canisters. We can remove the springs from your canisters and clean the springs. During this process, we also clean the inside of the canister and re-install the springs with fresh grease. Most motors have 2 springs but may have 1, 3, 4, or 6. We'll let you know what's needed and how many springs you have when we do the free estimate on your motor. NOTE: If you elect to only send the spring canisters, we may not be able to test to assure that the center arbors are connected properly without your motor to test and wind them with. We cannot possibly have all of the 1000's of possible motor styles complete and ready to test springs with. Should there be a spring that needs to be returned due to this problem, the shipping costs would be the responsibility of the customer and will need to send the motor on the board anyway for proper testing. The difference in shipping cost is minimal between sending the entire motor and just the springs as the bulk of the weight is in the springs anyway. Also, we can look the motor over to be sure that all is well. Price: $34 per spring (The cleaning of the spring barrel is included in this price)New Mainsprings:If your motor doesn't wind up, more than likely your mainspring(s) are broken. Usually one spring breaks at a time but it is possible that all springs are broke. When servicing a broken spring, the spring is removed from barrel and the barrel is cleaned. We install the new spring(s) with fresh grease and test the springs to make sure everything is hooked properly. It's not recommended to try removing the spring barrels on your own. If you're un