AY160 Mech questions

I have a very nice AY-160 which I got about a year ago. I spent countless hours repairing it back then, almost every aspect of the machine to make it look very beautiful and work properly. It's strictly light duty for home use, playing maybe 50 tunes a week. I'm very proud of it and hope to have it for many decades as a family aireloom. That said, I want to maintain it best I can for future family generations.

This brings me to the mech. The only aspect of the machine I didn't initially service when I got the AY160 was the mech. So I tackled it about 6 months ago to "Get 'er done" and finish the project. The clutch unit worked but was covered with old crappy bad lubricants so I removed and thoroughly cleaned it. I took my time cleaning and properly lubing the mech according to the service manual.

I opened a thread here at that time here: http://www.phonoland.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6086

At the time I had found it necessary to remove one section of the flat gear tracks from the frame to remove the clutch (I didn't see any other way to reach the clutch's bottom mounting screws). I followed the 4 point clutch adjustment exactly as laid out in the manual. I reinstalled the record lifting arm/plunger mount assembly per manual and centered the screws in the slot which mount it to the mech frame.

Everything went perfect to that point. But then I installed the magazine.
I am suspecting I have the point where the bottom clutch gear runs on the flat gear track.... off a tooth or so. I say this because the record lifting arm/plunger mount sat exactly between two magazine slots. I had to slide the arm mount to an extreme to make it align to the middle of the magazine slot... and the magazine slid all the way to its opposite extreme. I installed the Tormat and did the pin alignment and that, too didn't seem "right".

I had ran out of time to work on it then so I put it back into the cabinet and been using that way ever since. Functionally, the unit did work however the a quiet knocking noise had appeared in the mech... but only while traveling left to right and intensified the more it traveled to the right side. I double checked to ensure no binding in the clutch assembly. No binding so I've been using it that way ever since.

It's been 6-7 months since then, and time for regular maintenance. I normally wouldn't dig this far into it for simple maintenance but I have the week off and want to spend some time getting this alignment issue "right". I dug and dug into the manual but couldn't find any proper alignment reference regarding drive track and gear. I have the mech on my bench with the magazine off to solve this misalignment problem once and for all.

I plan to move the mech one tooth over on its drive track gear and see if the magazine/lifter/Tormat aligns better.


I had also previously thought my contact points were completely burned away. I took the time today to really clean them. I was going to take the bakelite stack apart and really polish them but I believe the cylinder posts have expanded and I don't want to force/break it. So I just wiped them a zillion times with an alcohol soaked cotton rag. They are in better shape than I had previously thought and I was wondering your opinion of the obviously burned one. Here are the best pics I could take of them:




In your opinion, does the "lesser" point still have a lot of life left or should I begin researching a replacement?

Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

Hi Steve,
What can I say--except that if you had purchased and read my Seeburg Mechanism Guide, it would have saved you a "bunch" of work ! The clutch assembly can be removed without doing what you did, and can be re-aligned very simply. At this point you will need to remove the short track, run the mech down and "skip" one tooth . Once that's done, you will need to re-align the lift arm/contact block assembly with the record rack.
As for the contact points--1. You ALMOST never need to pull them apart--just change silver contacts, when needed. 2. Can't tell from photo's--but it looks like the ones shown are OK--If there is silver left--no pits or burs, they are usually good--read the sticky above, on contact points. Ron Rich

Thank you so much for the reply.
You were right (of course) my mech was by 1 tooth on the gear plate. I followed your advice and everything lined up perfectly. I identified the knocking to be coming from the turntable shaft. I was able to eliminate the noise by loosening the end cap lock nut and slowly turning the hex screw just until the horizontal play was eliminated then snugging down the lock nut.

I'm getting over knee surgery (I'm trying to be as active as possible) so I've been working on this project on and off all day. I had a few issues with proper record selection which ended up being contact point adjustments and the left/right carriage limit switch adjustments (They were adjusted last time when the mech was 1 tooth off). Oh-I got lit up with the 300vdc. It's not something I want to do again.

My AY is working fabulous- all the maintenance lube is also done. No odd noises and I know it's done right. It means a lot to have that confidence and I attribute much of my learning to Ron (and the other experts here). Thanks for reminding me of your guide. I am sure it has a lot of important additional information I will need. I'll let you know when it's the right time to order it.