Bought a Rock-ola 404 for 65 bucks, gripper motor is burned up, need to know if a motor from a model 408 will swap in.

This post can serve as my introduction as well. I bought a Rock-ola 404 for 65 bucks that had been sitting in a warehouse since the mid 80's. I've been working on it trying to get it back working and yes, I do have a service manual for what it's worth. The gripper motor is running slow and I could smell the motor burning so I pulled the motor out. When I pulled it apart it was cooked so it needs a new one. The part number off the 404 motor is 34672. There is a gripper motor from a 408 used/working on ebay that I can afford. The part number on the 408 gripper motor is 36600-33830. These jukeboxes were both built the same year, 404 is 100 selection and 408 is 160. The motor off the 408 is on ebay so I can't just compare the 2 straight up and I hate to buy something unless I'm sure it'll fit but they look identical from what I can see. My question is what is the difference between these motors? They have 2 different part numbers so there has to be a difference between the 2 right? Let me know or if anyone has a Rock-ola 404 gripper motor #34672 let me know. Also, I know there is a 34672 motor on ebay right now but theyre asking 125 for it and they won't say whether it works or not so I'd rather not risk it. Thanks!

Jake,
My GUESS would be--the motors are the same--the gear is probably different, for the two different record basket configurations--
Should be fairly easy to swap gears ??
And--BTW--ANY eBay "seller" who won't say if it "works, or not", IMHO, is telling you that it do, NOT work !!
Ron Rich

Jake, I've had limited experience with R-O but have some thoughts;

The gripper motor is the most failure prone on -all- R-O mechs. Typically they develop shorted turns in their armature and thus the current rises to the point where they blow the fuse in the power supply. Under properly fused conditions the fuse should blow long before you small any sort of burning from the motor. It is odd that there would be a smell given the sealed design of the motor.

--Be sure to check for proper fuses in all positions.--

Often these 'failed" motors actually have commutators segments that have been bridged and clogged with shavings from the brushes. Carefully clearing this from the segments may restore lower current operation. The gripper motor should draw no more that 500-550ma if normal.

The older style (gray ) gripper motors are electrically interchangeable. However, for some reason some had a two pin plug and others had a three pin with (IIRC) one pin jumped to the pin that was missing on the two -pin type. In either case, the motor itself has only two wires going into it.

If you open the motor and find it covered with what looks like soot -that is actually dust from the brushes and not itself indicative of a failure.

There is an old topic here that may be helpful:

viewtopic.php?t=5763

The pinion gear should all be the same for the gripper motor on the old style mech and held with a roll pin

Another point is that the magazine motor is not directly interchangeable with the gripper, even though they look the same. Magazine motors (that I have dealt with) are four wire with a stator coil. The mounting triad is slightly different as well.

Rob-NYC

Well hate to resurrect an old thread but I thought I'd post on here that I finally found a correct gripper motor and it's working great. Of course, the coin mech isn't working, the selection buttons arent working, but I can flip all the little switches on the pinbank and listen to 100 songs back to back! Except there is one B side that doesn't play, so it's actually 99 but I'm happy for now and slowly but surely I'll get this thing back in better working condition. Anyway, thanks for all the replies.