Popularity wheel not functioning Rockola 442

Hi Folks,

Im waiting on some parts for my 442, so thought I'd take a look at another one of the many problems! For now i'd ignored this as in terms of priority its fairly low.

The popularity wheel does not work, neither does the "total" counter, which was on 77,856 when I bought it. They're both driven by the same rods, if I pull this manually the counter increments, and the popularity wheel is engaged for the present selection. But during the course of placing a record and starting to play, there is nothing that causes any of this to move. I've checked the service manual but there is no detail on how this works exactly. Does anyone know what should engage this? I have a few exploded diagrams in the parts manual, but as this spans across several diagrams its tricky to work out how it functions.

This is an "automix" deck, where originally it would switch between 33 and 45, but has had the speed change removed. I wonder whether the "restorer" who sold this to me (and I use the quotations on purpose, feel free to insert moron,idiot, gepetto, etc) might have not put something back correctly when this was done?

any hints would be much appreciated,

Adam

Hi Adam,
LOVE your "choice words", for the "restorer"--plenty of them out there !!
As Doghouse says--remove the TT and watch it--strictly a mechanical operation, that I do not remember, but seems it's simple to understand, if "watched"--/also--suspect that the "counter" has failed by now--pretty typical--Ron Rich

I had a look at what happens as you said, but could not see where this was meant to be driven from. It looked like a cam on the gripper was meant to move this, but it was nowhere near it.

Had my local jukebox engineer over to replace the gripper mech, and he said the arm that moves the counter and pop meter (attached to a bracket on the tonearm bearing housing) had been bent out the way! So he bent it back, made some adjustments and the meter and counter are now working.