It's been a while since I bought my GF-9292 from member Petey Awol off of ebay... It was basically described as a project box with potential, not working tape deck and some pitting in the chrome. As this was my childhood box and I've been wanting one since I got back into boxes about four years ago, placed a bid and won it for $80...
Here is how it arrived, a cocoon of boombox in bubble wrap, flopping around between some styrofaom sheets. No peanuts.
At first glance it looked pretty good from far...
... but in reality and up close it was far from good.
I discovered the following:
1) at at some point the box was dropped at the part of the handle in the above pic.
2) as a result of that drop, the loudness switch was ineffective and the VU's would go dark when you flip the tuning/batt level light switch forward. Obviously
there was some circuit board damage that happened there. Luckily, the tuning light at least works.
3) Pitting on the chrome was worse than I'd feared.
4) The battery compartment had rusted spring and there had been leaky batteries in there, probably more than once....
5) Wouldn't run on batteries at all, even after sanding the contacts to ensure the ends were conductive... Some of the interior power related cables were shot and needed re-wiring.
6) The tweeter grills looked crooked to me?
7) Despite the looks, she sounded pretty good pushing FM radio though... so I forced myself to stay encouraged. After all, all I needed was some of the right parts, right???
I set forth to change the tape deck's belts, cleaned the pinch roller and capstan, cleaned the goo from the capstan shaft and put in a piece of tubing as a replacement.... Basically a full rebuild, short of a new pinch roller. I got the deck to play and it actually sounded pretty good. But about 10 minutes into a tape it would pull tape out and seize up. The pinch roller was simply too far gone to be trusted in regular use. Plus, when I put it back together, I had missed a minor step and whenever I hit REW it would FF instead.
A couple of weeks after doing all of that, our good buddy Bredgeo came along and unwittingly saved the day.
Some of you may recall when he posted the thread that he had a Sharp GF-9191 HB Back (and some other parts) available as freebies. Granted, the parts were in Ireland and shipping to the US was almost as much as I had paid for the box... but it's not like I can simply go to radio shack and get these parts, or order them directly from Sharp, right??? I had already asked around and nobody I knew with a stash of parts boxes in the states seemed to have a doner 9x9x. And Since we are talking about my childhood box here, I said to hell with the $$$ for shipping and took him up on his offer for the spare back (with minty handle) and a spare GF-9191 tape mechanism he had on hand... complete with a decent pinch roller and clean capstan assembly. As you can see from the pic of the old decks' guts that was a good idea. And while we were at it, I also picked up a spare RC-M90 aluminum trim piece in case something ever happened to mine. Brian has the mac-daddy hook up on the M90 trims. 
I should also point out that before I ever decided to bite the bullet on the shipping expenses and such, Brian posted several very informative instructive videos explaining what I needed to do to fix my tape mechanism. He is really generous with his time and seems willing to make every effort to help a fellow collector in need. I really can't say enough about what a tremendous asset he is to the Boombox collector community!!!! I sent him some tapes as a thank you for his time and generosity.
Moving along, at some point I busted out the Orange Glow cleaning solution and various other materials and got to work trying to make this box look better. I really did not think I'd ever get any of the chrome's pitting to clean up... but much to my surprise a good portion of it came off. Mind you that it took lots and lots of elbow grease. I was on the back patio for hours working on little parts of chrome at a time, but the efforts paid off and the box really looks much more presentable now. The "after" pics below were taken indoors, in completely different light and using the camera's flash... so they are more harsh and really don't do the box proper justice... And despite the considerable effort cleaning it, the chrome was way too affected to where I don't think it will ever be considered a minty GF-9292 again, but at least it looks like a decent survivor box now rather than a lost cause... I can live with it.
Swapping out the back was actually pretty easy. The GF-9x9x boxes have a well deserved reputation for being among the easiest out there to work on for good reason. The electronics come out in one big piece and there are only a few cables to snip and reconnect. Nobody should ever be afraid to tackle this project. If I can do it, you can... trust me... I was even able to transplant the MFR badging on the back and make it look original.
Even the tape deck mechanism is easy-out and easy in. I did have to transplant the motor from the old unit to the new tape drive, but that went pretty easy and I had experience doing that with my GF-9696. BUT, I did run into one major snag at this point... Upon getting it all back together, the new tape drive would only play out of one channel!!!! I was sure I had done everything right and after a couple of hours of adjusting, troubleshooting connections and absolutely everything I could think of, I bit the bullet and reluctantly transplanted the old, nasty looking tape play/rec head into the new unit.... Sure enough, that did the trick. It must have been the head, as the wires all looked pretty well connected and in good shape.
Regardless of that, now, my GF-9292 has a nice looking back, looks much more presentable from the front and the top. It plays tapes like it did when it was new and it runs like a champ from batteries.
Sooooo...., now that I've got renewed hope in this box, I might give the chrome clean up another shot at some point in the future. But if I do I will probably use a rotary tool with a special cloth-type polishing attachment.... Too many nooks and crannies to try to do this with my fingers and fingernails. For now, I'm just happy with the progress made so far. And when I do that, I'll also tackle repairing whatever damage there is to that corner where the drop happened, causing the loudness and tuning/batt level switches to not work properly. So much time had elapsed between the first and second time I had the box open that I had actually forgotten about those issues.
No rush though.... this box isn't going anywhere....
Here are some after pix to give an idea of the progress on the chrome:
Here is how it arrived, a cocoon of boombox in bubble wrap, flopping around between some styrofaom sheets. No peanuts.
At first glance it looked pretty good from far...
... but in reality and up close it was far from good.
I discovered the following:
1) at at some point the box was dropped at the part of the handle in the above pic.
2) as a result of that drop, the loudness switch was ineffective and the VU's would go dark when you flip the tuning/batt level light switch forward. Obviously
there was some circuit board damage that happened there. Luckily, the tuning light at least works.
3) Pitting on the chrome was worse than I'd feared.
4) The battery compartment had rusted spring and there had been leaky batteries in there, probably more than once....
5) Wouldn't run on batteries at all, even after sanding the contacts to ensure the ends were conductive... Some of the interior power related cables were shot and needed re-wiring.
6) The tweeter grills looked crooked to me?
7) Despite the looks, she sounded pretty good pushing FM radio though... so I forced myself to stay encouraged. After all, all I needed was some of the right parts, right???
I set forth to change the tape deck's belts, cleaned the pinch roller and capstan, cleaned the goo from the capstan shaft and put in a piece of tubing as a replacement.... Basically a full rebuild, short of a new pinch roller. I got the deck to play and it actually sounded pretty good. But about 10 minutes into a tape it would pull tape out and seize up. The pinch roller was simply too far gone to be trusted in regular use. Plus, when I put it back together, I had missed a minor step and whenever I hit REW it would FF instead.
A couple of weeks after doing all of that, our good buddy Bredgeo came along and unwittingly saved the day.
Some of you may recall when he posted the thread that he had a Sharp GF-9191 HB Back (and some other parts) available as freebies. Granted, the parts were in Ireland and shipping to the US was almost as much as I had paid for the box... but it's not like I can simply go to radio shack and get these parts, or order them directly from Sharp, right??? I had already asked around and nobody I knew with a stash of parts boxes in the states seemed to have a doner 9x9x. And Since we are talking about my childhood box here, I said to hell with the $$$ for shipping and took him up on his offer for the spare back (with minty handle) and a spare GF-9191 tape mechanism he had on hand... complete with a decent pinch roller and clean capstan assembly. As you can see from the pic of the old decks' guts that was a good idea. And while we were at it, I also picked up a spare RC-M90 aluminum trim piece in case something ever happened to mine. Brian has the mac-daddy hook up on the M90 trims. I should also point out that before I ever decided to bite the bullet on the shipping expenses and such, Brian posted several very informative instructive videos explaining what I needed to do to fix my tape mechanism. He is really generous with his time and seems willing to make every effort to help a fellow collector in need. I really can't say enough about what a tremendous asset he is to the Boombox collector community!!!! I sent him some tapes as a thank you for his time and generosity. Moving along, at some point I busted out the Orange Glow cleaning solution and various other materials and got to work trying to make this box look better. I really did not think I'd ever get any of the chrome's pitting to clean up... but much to my surprise a good portion of it came off. Mind you that it took lots and lots of elbow grease. I was on the back patio for hours working on little parts of chrome at a time, but the efforts paid off and the box really looks much more presentable now. The "after" pics below were taken indoors, in completely different light and using the camera's flash... so they are more harsh and really don't do the box proper justice... And despite the considerable effort cleaning it, the chrome was way too affected to where I don't think it will ever be considered a minty GF-9292 again, but at least it looks like a decent survivor box now rather than a lost cause... I can live with it.
Swapping out the back was actually pretty easy. The GF-9x9x boxes have a well deserved reputation for being among the easiest out there to work on for good reason. The electronics come out in one big piece and there are only a few cables to snip and reconnect. Nobody should ever be afraid to tackle this project. If I can do it, you can... trust me...
I was even able to transplant the MFR badging on the back and make it look original. Even the tape deck mechanism is easy-out and easy in. I did have to transplant the motor from the old unit to the new tape drive, but that went pretty easy and I had experience doing that with my GF-9696. BUT, I did run into one major snag at this point... Upon getting it all back together, the new tape drive would only play out of one channel!!!! I was sure I had done everything right and after a couple of hours of adjusting, troubleshooting connections and absolutely everything I could think of, I bit the bullet and reluctantly transplanted the old, nasty looking tape play/rec head into the new unit.... Sure enough, that did the trick. It must have been the head, as the wires all looked pretty well connected and in good shape.
Regardless of that, now, my GF-9292 has a nice looking back, looks much more presentable from the front and the top. It plays tapes like it did when it was new and it runs like a champ from batteries.
Sooooo...., now that I've got renewed hope in this box, I might give the chrome clean up another shot at some point in the future. But if I do I will probably use a rotary tool with a special cloth-type polishing attachment.... Too many nooks and crannies to try to do this with my fingers and fingernails. For now, I'm just happy with the progress made so far. And when I do that, I'll also tackle repairing whatever damage there is to that corner where the drop happened, causing the loudness and tuning/batt level switches to not work properly. So much time had elapsed between the first and second time I had the box open that I had actually forgotten about those issues.
No rush though.... this box isn't going anywhere....
Here are some after pix to give an idea of the progress on the chrome:
- what a turd
