The jukebox gods hate me... (Rowe MM-6 Rebuild)

Edit: I'm turning this thread into my 'restoration' or 'clean through' thread, just to keep everything in one place. This is on a Rowe/AMI MM-6 that has seen a lot of usage in its life.

I figure that I should start a thread to provide ya'll some laughs at the best, grimaces at the worst.

First, some background on my machine - In short, it's extremely used. When I picked it up from the seller, he claimed he was the original owner, and had it in various places, including a couple bars, bowling alleys, etc. He stated that 'he had to take it out of service because it kept giving him "problems". While at his place, he plugged it in and selected a record. It played fine, surprisingly. However, the record looked severely warped(*), so after two or three revolutions, the record would cancel (the 'no record' screw would make contact with the plate and send the transfer motor running).

I took it - mainly because I enjoy working on these, and the price was something I couldn't pass up.

So I get it home, and like I mentioned I knew the amp needs to be rebuilt. I'm waiting for some schematics before attacking the amp (the manuals I ordered did not come with them, sadly), so decided to attack some of the other issues.

After looking at it, I also found that not only was the records in the machine warped, but somehow the turntable shaft was bent as well. How the h3ll that was done I have no idea..! So the first project was straightening the shaft. I wasn't able to get it perfect, but good enough to where I could play records. Records played, but at 33rpm, and a horrid rumbling being transmitted from the motor.

So, the next step was to look at the "Automix" speed selector. The turntable spins at 33rpm, as the idler wheel and the linkage is sitting far too high. Part of the reason was that the motor bushings were very old, so new bushings went in. Interestingly, the manual says not to use washers on the e-clips, but I had to find some, since the new bushings weren't much better than the originals - as far as size goes. The rumble from the motor DID subside, however. So one issue fixed. However, the 'Automix' was still running on 33rpm. The idler wheel was far, far too high. According to the manual, the solenoid that controls the idler wheel can be swung on the bottom screw, causing the idler wheel to lower or raise. However, apparently my 110 selector was made before they added this 'feature'.

So since the motor plate was also horridly dirty, covered in old oil and grease, I figured to take the whole plate apart, motor, phonograph arm, and speed selector/idler wheel. Cleaned the plate up, and looked at the idler wheel. Apparently one of the links in the speed selector assembly was bent upwards. This was an easy fix, bend it back! In the process of testing my slight bends in getting it back, the motor stopped!

Argh. I *believe* I got the speed selector links back to normal (though I am looking for replacements, in case), but now I cannot tell, as apparently the previous owner stopped maintaining the motor, and I forgot to drop some oil in. So, now my motor is frozen up.

I also found the issue with the annunciator and why the wheels weren't moving (missing set-screw). So after everything is back together, old oil cleaned up off of everything, the speed selector should be working, turntable on order, the phono arm is lifting properly,

So all in all, I'm ahead of where I was, but now can't play anything until my replacement turntable and motor come in.

Things left to do?
Well, poke at the amp.
Clean up the transfer arm - like the motor area, it's horrendously covered in old grease and oil.
Clean up the side-selector solenoid - it's not dirty, but it's also not moving freely.
Clean the credit mech - the board is tarnished and making the wipers make poor connections.
Go through the transfer motor and the transfer stop.

Hi. Sounds like a rock ola. but not sure since you did not let us know what brand and model number you have. We may have experienced something similar, but can't be sure. Mark

You've told us a few things *except* the most important: the make and model number of the jukebox!

Steve, I believe was are still talking about the Rowe MM 6.

FWIW: ALL of what you describe is common place in this business. The fact that the machine appears to have no bad transformers places you ahead of what i've often had to deal with.

My own approach has always been that once a machine is "next" for restoration it first gets a visual exam for missing-broken parts. I also look for any evidence of burned transformers, coils and motors. That all takes about 10 minutes.

After that I take the machine apart to prep for total washing. The degree to which I take apart the mech depends on the make and model.
Seeburgs: Tonearm assembly out. Pop meter, trip coil and motor all come out for separate washing. Due to the fact that I spray diluted emulsifier (floor stripper) on the mechanism and it flows into all crevices I don't need to break it down beyond that. The entire mech and base assembly gets immersed in very warm water, while there I use gloves and work the mech through at least one cycle to help flush the bearings. rinse w/hot water and blow dry with a vacuum as blower.

AMi-Rowe and get similar treatments

For Wurlitzer carousel: Tonearm off. Arch removed. Pin memory removed. All motors removed. large lift springs removed. Washing same as above.

All electronics are washed as well with care taken to minimize water getting into transformers. So-far I've never lost a tran in any type of equipment due to washing.

Cabinets, keyboards, etc all get washed too, but obviously speakers get careful cleaning with no immersion.

it is a fairly large job and can take several hours but the machines will be close to new in cleanliness and much more pleasant to work on. Washing items like keyboards and pin memory units as well as circuit boards and edge connectors will have to be done anyway or you'll be chasing problems due to poor connections.

I know this doesn't directly help you here, but understand, these are commercial machines that see use (and abuse) far beyond anything that you'll normally have designed for the home. After a decade or more of that, some are sold into the home market where that at best face neglect and at worst tinkering by "Gepettos".

Many machines I bought came from op's storage 'facilities" which were garages a barn and when "lucky" and actual warehouse. very few were intact, many were 'dumpers" -cannibalized for parts and failed assemblies placed back. Many had evidence of critter habitation.

Been there. Done it all dozens of times. Don't feel bad, what you are dealing with is well within normal range.

here is a list of what i've owned:

Seeburg:
BL 100
L-100 (3)
R-100
JL-100
V200
VL200
K-200
201 (5)
222
Q-160
AY-160
BL-100 (1950)
U100
SS160
LPC480 (2)
HLPC (hideway)
V-VL (Hideaways) (4)
LS3
----------27
--------------------

Wurlitzer:
1650 (sold for parts)
1700
1800 (3)
2100
2150
2304 (Stereo converted)
2300 (orig stereo)
2300 (Stereo converted)
2300 Left mono amp, mag pickup)
2400 (mono w/mag conv)
2400 (Stereo)
2600
2710 (100 sel)
2810
2900
3000
3110 (100 sel)
3200

------------19

--------------
Rock-Ola

1458 (120 sel)
1465 (200 sel) (2qty)
1496 (120 sel)
"Tempo 1" (200 sel)
"Princess" (100 sel)
"Grand Prix" (160 sel)
432 (Grand Prix Junior 160 sel)
Another from 1968 don't remember mod.

----------------9
-------------------------------

AMI Rowe and pre:

"E" (Ugly as hell)
H-200
I-200 Mech sel
J-200 (stereo)
Continental 1 (200 sel)
Continental 2 (100 sel).
JEL (200 sel) First juke I played in 1963
JAL (200 sel)
JAN (200 sel)
JAO (200 sel)
MMI " "
MM2 " "
TI1 " "
MM1 Hideways (2 qty on loc)

------15

TONS of wallboxes (over 100) and external speakers.


I'm probably forgetting one or two..but you see where this leads...Watch out (or have a -lot- of space).

At the peak of my interest in the mid eighties through early 1990's I had 11 or 12 machines in the apt at once.

Most have been sold or on-location and I currently have only two at home (AMI "I" 200 and Wurl 1800)


Rob

Ken Layton wrote:You've told us a few things *except* the most important: the make and model number of the jukebox!

mb9513 wrote:Hi. Sounds like a rock ola. but not sure since you did not let us know what brand and model number you have. We may have experienced something similar, but can't be sure. Mark

D'oh! Sorry guys. Yeah, it's an Rowe/AMI MM-6. Not a really 'collector' machine - no art-deco artwork, blocky, no rounded corners..

My *first* introduction to ANYTHING coin-op related was this model juke. Back in the mid-80's, when I was about 10, my dad and our next-door neighbor bought 4 of them for $1k total. One ended up in our basement for keeps, the other three they rented out to parties, etc. The one in our basement was pretty much torn apart and reassembled by my brother and I. (No manuals, and back then no internet to order 'em!)

The juke was trashed many years ago, and now that I (finally?) have a place of my own, had to get one back into my collection. Nostalgia and all that.

Rob-NYC wrote:FWIW: ALL of what you describe is common place in this business. The fact that the machine appears to have no bad transformers places you ahead of what i've often had to deal with.

[...]

My own approach has always been that once a machine is "next" for restoration it first gets a visual exam for missing-broken parts. I also look for any evidence of burned transformers, coils and motors. That all takes about 10 minutes.

After that I take the machine apart to prep for total washing. The degree to which I take apart the mech depends on the make and model.
Seeburgs: Tonearm assembly out. Pop meter, trip coil and motor all come out for separate washing. Due to the fact that I spray diluted emulsifier (floor stripper) on the mechanism and it flows into all crevices I don't need to break it down beyond that. The entire mech and base assembly gets immersed in very warm water, while there I use gloves and work the mech through at least one cycle to help flush the bearings. rinse w/hot water and blow dry with a vacuum as blower.

This is pretty much what I'm doing now, just not as fast and intense. I'm taking my time cleaning everything. (Mainly because between the job and the wife's job, and dinner, etc, it's slow.)

This specific juke was very well-used in its lifetime, I'll tell you that.

Interestingly, so far I've only seen one 'hack' - at some point someone made some kind of jumper wire. Since I don't have the scematics yet, I'm not sure what it did, but will look it up when I can. Very strange, since the wire was fed through several plastic routing and wire sleeves, and if you didn't notice it you wouldn't have known it was there.

For the smaller parts, I'm using an ultra-sonic cleaner that I had gotten for a restore/cleaning of my pinball, and it's done a rather nice job on the gunk from the juke.

Rob-NYC wrote:All electronics are washed as well with care taken to minimize water getting into transformers. So-far I've never lost a tran in any type of equipment due to washing.

Cabinets, keyboards, etc all get washed too, but obviously speakers get careful cleaning with no immersion.

it is a fairly large job and can take several hours but the machines will be close to new in cleanliness and much more pleasant to work on. Washing items like keyboards and pin memory units as well as circuit boards and edge connectors will have to be done anyway or you'll be chasing problems due to poor connections.

So far, I've put the machine trhough its paces, and everything seems to be working well - the ONLY thing that has issues is the credit assembly - for some reason that board and wipers are very tarnished, giving bad connections to selection lights and the selection enable solenoid not activate at times.

Rob-NYC wrote:here is a list of what i've owned:
[..]
TONS of wallboxes (over 100) and external speakers.

Holy crap, that's one hell of a collection..!

Eventually, I'd like to get two wallboxes to mount up in the house (one in kitchen, one in bedroom) and wire up to the juke. That'll be after I get everything else cleaned up and operational again.

--Mike

Today I went through the credit unit. Out of everything I listed above, the credit unit was the last item regularly giving me issues. It wasns't difficult to see why:

I have no idea what happened to this board - NONE of the other wiper boards are like this. I still don't have it clean, either. I thought it would be one of the 'standard'-type corrosion/dirt, where an eraser would wipe it right off. Nope! Whatever this black stuff is, it's almost permanent, which .. argh. Not to mention that the wiper arm had fingers that were severely bent out of line. That was an easy fix - but for the board, I'm not sure what to do, honestly. You can see that the wiper wasn't attached properly to the shaft, either, as it stopped at 27 credits - the detent wheel in the mech hit max.

Wouldn't it be great to make a completely new board from OSHPark for this? No, I'm not going to, but the thought DID cross my mind, I'll admit.

Any thoughts on cleaning this?

This is a common problem on Rowe credit units. It is just silver tarnish. I have that in all of my WRA-B-C wallboxes. I just wet a piece of rough rag type paper (I use a coffee filter from the location) with some contact cleaner, I used to use carbon-tet but that is NLA so I use any other metal polishing compound such as for tableware.

I don't remove the wiper assembly. Be careful not to tighten the plastic clamp too much as they get brittle with age.

Rob

Didja try ammonia ?? That looks like tarnish, so ammonia should clean it, or "borrow" some of you wife's/Mom's silver polish--
Ron Rich

Hi Mike,

I just use an eraser and plenty of elbow grease, I have always removed the wiper assembly to do the job correctly with regards to cleaning it would need loosening in order to check the adjustments.

The 1100/1200 mechanism loads of cleaning, checking for broken or worn parts, the ones over lubricated will clean up easily but will be worn out, the ones hardly lubricated will be hard to clean, be rusty in places but will be less worn.

It will be a case of a major strip down clean and rebuild replacing the worn parts as you set the mechanism up as per the manual.

If you have used the Rock Ola rubber mounts rather than the Rowe Ami ones this is why the motor is sitting lower than it should.

Please let us know how you get on.

Regards
Alan

Alan Hood
ami-man
UK

Tarn-X Silver Tarnish Remover and a stiff bristle brush.

Thanks guys, I'll attack it tonight.

I did remove the wiper - mainly to inspect the fingers to make sure they were good. They needed adjustment anyways, so I'm glad I did. (In fact, one pair of fingers had the end tabs broken off, yet were the only ones I did NOT have to put back in line with the others. I can't figure that one out.)

I use Brasso on a rag and it cleans that stuff right off.

Well, some news from last night -
Simple eraser cleaning did NOT work, nor did ammonia. Wife is running out today to get me a small thing of silver polish, to try that. This tarnish is tough, lemme tell you.

Schematics, stepper manual, and new turntable arrived yesterday.

Turntable is flat, which is good. It had an interesting hack on it - previous owner had put a lock-nut over the alignment pin to keep the center pin in the 'raised' position. Apparently whatever juke this came from lost the solenoid for 33/45 RPM speed.

Also interestingly, the turntable motor now spins freely. I added a couple more drops of oil to the feed tube, and played a record. It worked fine, though is a little slow. (Haven't counted, but sound like 42-43rpm instead of 45.) And, with 'new' turntable, the speed select linkages seem to hold it at 45rpm instead of dropping to 33. I'll still be getting new linkages (as the ones in mine WERE bent, and still aren't perfectly straight after I adjusted them back), but it's good to hear it play.

Now that I have my schematics, I'm ready to poke at the amp and transformers. However, after seeing the dirt and grime on the mechs and seeing what needs to be adjusted, I'm leaning more and more to just sending the amp out to get rebuilt by someone who has the time and can catch things I may miss. (That would also then save ME time by focusing on the mechanical mech and operation.)

If it's not one thing, it's another.

Got some silver/metal polish and cleaned up the credit unit wiper board. Also re-adjusted the wiper blade, and set the adjustments and such for my chosen pricing profile. Also replaced the two lights in the selection panel (one was burnt out, and I had nice frosted LED bulbs. Credit unit & coin mech installed, and lights and selection relay work well. The pricing switches on the service panel need to be cleaned, as they're rather sensitive - if just touched, the selection solenoid will release.

While testing the credit unit, however, my selection unit started acting up. The S1 lever (number selection wiper) would drop/energize, and then never release. Within about 10 selections, it got worse from happening from a couple times to all the time.

So, last night I took the selector off - since it was next on the line for cleaning and adjusting. A couple things I noticed on mine -

1. A date stamp on it puts it made in 1966 - 6 years before MM6's were 'released'.
2. One of the relays is hard-wired - directly soldered to. I do NOT remember this on my previous MM-6 I owned 20+ years ago, and would be curious if this is/was standard, or if the setup was changed. If my adjusting and cleaning do not fix the S1 from releasing properly, that may mean this relay is going bad. If this is the case, it's going to be a heck of a soldering job.
3. Like the relay, some of the adjustment mention using a hex-key to adjust the selection relay arms - mine, however, has lock-nuts and screws.

Close-up of the relay on my search unit:


The selector is drying at the moment (cleaned the selection pins) and will be installed later this this afternoon.

Next in line is the selection panel - buttons need to be cleaned, and some adjustments need to be made, since at SOME times, buttons won't catch properly.