1984 Philips D8534 'Cheese Gears' Repair • Plastic Fantastic?

A repair that took a while owing to several other things getting in the way! On this I cover common issues with the plastics on this 1984 Austrian-made boombox system: jammed buttons, loose belts, crumbling gears, erase head discombobulation and speaker grille discolouration. There's coverage of the common gear repair on youtube already, but again, many skip over the details, so I did it in a bit longer form here. I hope this is useful to anyone tackling one of these - and my heart goes out to you because the mechanism is a pain.
The (non-affiliated / sponsored) listing for the gear and belt set I bought:
www.ebay.co.uk...
Useful thread about the common erase head fault:
www.vintage-ra...
Music at the end is from LOVE 2: Kuso, a game by Fred Wood, with music by me. You can find the game at kuso.ge and the soundtracks at lovethegame.bandcamp.com

[@srvr1007]

Really impressed with your patience when dealing with that much aged plastic. Turned out beautiful.

[@clairearendse4877]

Great job James. Not only on the repair, but the filming, and detail also. Cheers!

[@daffyduxxx]

A very enjoyable restoration, thank you. I admire your attention to detail, particularly in regards to the cleaning and appearance. Look forward to seeing more like this.

[@tungphamthanh4511]

Great job, Thanks for your video as I am about to have the same job done on my Philips 8434 which is on its way to me. I like Philips' sound better than some other brands

[@26chan]

Very informative video. I have one of these in the loft and the cassette no longer works. Looks like a real pain to change those gears.

[@derekf9]

Another great video James.😄

[@skeelo69]

I once owned the big brother of this..the one with the square speaker grills👍😎👍

[@jasonhandy8442]

I have two of them they haven't got a fade in issue I believe that's because it's been left in direct sunlight

[@madgeordierob7890]

Hi! Super helpful video, thank you so much! I picked one of these up for £15 with a 'stuck in' Eject button; cracked her open, the little spring on the back of the Eject button mechanism is missing and the Eject button was pushed in too far as a result. Is there any chance you could tell me what size spring to get so I can replace it? Many thanks!

[@jamesbennettmusic]

Thanks! I'm afraid I've no idea on the spring - this repair was a job for the owner, not myself, so I don't have it anymore to check. Unfortunately the service manual shows no breakdown of the tape mech parts either

[@Synthematix]

I had a tosiba boombox around 1986, great little stereo think it was an RT80S These phillips units had great sounding speakers tbh, although plastic if you fitted a proper tweeter and sealed the cabinets up they sounded very nice Warning from me, i had a pair of those side cutters, the end snapped off and hit me right in the corner of my eye, had to have a trip up to the eye hospital to get a 1mm piece of metal out of my eyeball, extremely painful.

[@jamesbennettmusic]

I have a nice pair of Knipex with the little retainer bar that I use for component leads to stop them pinging across the room. For quick and dirty jobs I use the blue knockoff ones!

[@janmos5178]

Good film.

[@hadibq]

Loved it!! New sub indeed! TY

[@antonioelle7421]

hi, I'm with the repair of a Philips D8234 recorder which has the same mechanics. Once opened I verified that 2 mechanisms with the teeth were broken and I replaced them. once everything has been reassembled, it happens to me that both with the play button and with forward and backward the plate raises but comes back down and doesn't stay there to play. I thought something was broken and I saw the inside of the large black wheel that raises the whole mechanism, a piece of the edge is missing, but I don't know if it's normal. I can't find a new one to see the difference. could you help me please?

[@jamesbennettmusic]

I don't have this anymore unfortunately (it doesn't belong to me) - everything I've got is in the video. A few models use the same mechanism so you might be able to look around on KZbin to see if anyone has other shots of it

[@juliancurtis4071]

James Bennett, I have an old Hitachi music centre that basically works, but needs some love.. if you are interested in fixing it, & hopefully doing a video on it, how do I contact you?

[@jamesbennettmusic]

if you click the description bit on my channel page, you can get my email address from there (you have to be on computer to do it, I don't think it works from phones)

[@juliancurtis4071]

email sent.. hope you are up for the challenge@@jamesbennettmusic

[@38911bytefree]

The full logic version also suffer from it. It is incredible how the people who invented the cassette couldnt do better. Any panasonic or Hitachi mechanism form this era will only need belts. Another brand that used this crap silicone gears is Grundig and Dual. And later Technics (they called fuse gears, mean to protect the mechanism) ....

[@jamesbennettmusic]

That's a good point about them being the "inventor of the cassette" haha! Yes I was surprised to find the extent of how this material was used. CD player trays and all sorts

[@38911bytefree]

@@jamesbennettmusic My theory is, when new, they are soft and tend to avoid the grinding vibration that could be transmited to the take up and eventually hurt the W&F. They are kinda of rubery, but hard enough to work as a gear. The other way would have been ...using rubber tires like thay have done for more than a decade. This have proven to be good enough. But hey, philips trying to save some pennies (IMHO). Which is a shame because Philips really did GOOD stuff.

[@UHF43]

​@@38911bytefreeThis kind of gears also reduce the mecanical noise during fast forwarding and rewinding.

[@janmos5178]

@@38911bytefree Here's a bit of a defense of European companies. This equipment had this plastic because it was intended for a few years of use and not for collectors in the 40s later. In 1984, European companies and not only European ones did not have such strong support and government protection as Asian companies, especially Japanese ones, had with your MITI. Social welfare in Japan was also much lower. Many Western companies could not afford mass production. And Western societies were not willing to tolerate protectionist solutions at home as much as Asians did.

[@janmos5178]

@@38911bytefree KONING: The Japanese achieved these positions not only because of their performance, but also through significant support from the Japanese government. I'm thinking primarily of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, better known by its abbreviation Miti. SPIEGEL: The Miti can at best be responsible for the initial successes of the Japanese Exporters will be held responsible. There is no longer any sign of a front in the Japanese electronics industry that has been consolidated by Miti. KONING: Of course, Miti's efforts to support the manufacturers and bring them together have now become much smaller. Once you're firmly seated in the saddle, you can loosen the reins. But with new technologies, Miti's support is still extremely important. SPIEGEL: What are you thinking about? KONING: For example, fiber optic technology. The Japanese electrical company NEC and other companies received huge orders from the government for fiber optic cables. The government paid five marks per meter of fiberglass, although the real price was probably closer to 2.50 marks. With this support, the Japanese were able to offer part of their production for export at a price of 1.25 per meter. So they were able to demonstrate their seemingly enormous performance abroad again. This has nothing to do with real competition. But that's how the Japanese did it with many products. DER SPIEGEL 39, 1985 “Speak clearly to the Japanese to stop!” SPIEGEL interview with Grundig boss Hermanus Koning about the trade duel between Europeans and Japanese. Google translate.