This is my 1976 Leak 2000 tuner/amp, I bought it quite cheaply on ebay, the best part of fifteen years ago, before the "vinyl revival" pushed up the prices of second hand equipment. It replaced a Philips 790 I bought in 1972 which had given up the ghost, the repair estimate was ridiculous.
This tuner/amp has worked perfectly for years. I mostly use it when I use either of these to play mp3s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KP-HpQTrcDkI hardly ever use the radio.
This caused a problem yesterday.
I turned on the radio and started searching for stations up and down the FM wave band. Then I found that the tuning knob was turning, but the indicator arm and the tuning gang wasn't. I took the top off the set and found a tangle of tuner cord, it had come off the wheels. I have a service manual and there's a whole page on how to re-string the cord...using the special tool... which I didn't have! The only use it was for me, was an illustration of which way the cord went around the tuning knob capstan and the big wheel that turns the tuner and how many turns around both. Otherwise I wouldn't have had a clue.
Now I know naff-all about repairing radios. I could have not bothered trying to replace the cord and if I occasionally wanted to use the radio I could slide the top of the set back and turn the tuning wheel with my finger.
But I like a challenge.
Being a bit of a gardener, I'd some stiff garden wire from which I was able to make a couple of tools, just a little hook and a "pusher." The cord was uncooperative, as it was rather stiff, not surprising after all these years and the access is terrible. There's no way you could get a finger down here, between the wheel and the tuning strength indicator unit. I had to use my "tools."
A case of anchoring the left-hand end of the loop of the cord to the cabinet at that end with some tape, then two turns round the tuning knob capstan, two around the tuning gang wheel then around the two jockey wheels at the right hand end, then coaxing the other end round the other two wheels. I even managed to set it up so the indicator arm was true to the postion of the tuning gang. I had to remove the trim over the tuning window to access the jockey wheels nearest the front.
Job done. But it took me over half an hour trying to get the turns of the cord to stay on the big wheel!
It's now working perfectly.
I've no idea when I will be next likely to use the radio, but with all my "toys" I like them to all be working as they should be, even if I don't often use them.
