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Thorens TD-124/II restoration / upgrade

Does anyone know if the Thorens TD124 mk2 came with transit bolts to secure the motor during transport? I can’t seem to find any reference to them.

The reason I ask is that when I originally brought my Thorens home, one of the wires from the motor to the small circuit board snapped, presumably due to the motor ‘wobbling about‘ during the journey. It was too short to re-attache so I had to graft in an extension piece.

If there are no Thorens transit bolts then my thoughts were to acquire a piece of dense-ish foam and make a tight cutout for the motor, to fit into the underside of the plinth.

Has anyone come up,with an alternative solution that has worked.

regards

Kevin
 
There were no transit bolts. I can imagine shipping would be a huge issue with the third-party springs in place of the original rubber grommets, though I’d expect the grommets to keep it from moving around too much. Thorens clearly thought so. This is the one aspect I really don’t like about the modern springs and I’d certainly replace the original grommets if I was ever moving or shipping my deck.

That you say the broken wire was too short to reattach suggests you weren’t the first person in there. There should be some slack.
 
Tony L said:
There were no transit bolts. I can imagine shipping would be a huge issue with the third-party springs in place of the original rubber grommets, though I’d expect the grommets to keep it from moving around too much. Thorens clearly thought so. This is the one aspect I really don’t like about the modern springs and I’d certainly replace the original grommets if I was ever moving or shipping my deck.

That you say the broken wire was too short to reattach suggests you weren’t the first person in there. There should be some slack.
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I did wonder the same thing about the length of the wire. The fix isn’t as pretty as I’d like, but invisible in use of course.

I do have the spring ’upgrade’, which probably made the problem more likely to occur.
 
The original rubber grommets do hold the motor securely, very little slop aside from a few mm straight up/down, and that is pretty stiff/damped. I’d certainly put this one down to the springs and suggest anyone think very carefully indeed before shipping a deck with them installed.
 
kevinrt said:
Does anyone know if the Thorens TD124 mk2 came with transit bolts to secure the motor during transport? .................................
regards Kevin
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When I purchased my TD124 II s/hand in the mid '70's, it came with the original cardboard carton that it had been dispatched in from the factory, and included most of the internal 'packing' that was used. This packing completly secured the t/table within the outer 'box' and included several flat sheets which had a 'motor shaped' hole which perfectly held the motor in place.
If you have access to the original version of the book 'Swiss Precision', there is an 'exploded' view of the complete packaging shown on 'Page 98'.
Regards
Mike Kelshaw
 
Tony L said:
I had to go back in and very slightly move the idler bushing today as I'd set it a tiny smidge too low and found it rubbed slightly when on 45rpm (my idler, like almost all vintage TD-124 idlers, has a little run-off so the rim bobs up and down a mm or so - it is perfectly concentric which is the important bit). As I had the platter off and the light was a little better I took a pic showing the new Hanze motor springs:

23620750244_33c9299953_o.jpg


They provide a far more bouncy support for the motor and I suspect may have reduced rumble a little, which is obviously the intent.

PS It annoys me when folk advertise TD-124s as "serviced" on eBay when they are clearly absolutely filthy and full of worn parts. This is what a properly serviced TD-124 looks like!
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That is a thing of beauty - different world to the td124 I’m living with
 
It’s still performing really nicely. I’m currently alternating between two arms (changing armboards on a 124 is a five minute job, so easy!); the late-60s Series II pictured above with either the Nagaoka MP-500 or Shure M44 with an M55E stylus, and a fixed-shell mid-70s S2 Improved with a V15 Type III.

53270640829_c84ba3a612_b.jpg


53405960096_2f51eb5817_b.jpg


Since the addition of Mike P’s blue belt the 124 has been behaving flawlessly, it just doesn’t get noisy due to belt-shedding anymore. I’m still on my first belt too. Haven‘t even flipped it inside out yet!

I‘d definitely recommend the rather nasty toxic MG Chemicals Rubber Renew (Amazon) on the idler too, it seems to breathe some new life into it with no adverse effects I can see (I first used it a year or two ago).

PS What’s the current issue with yours? Really cleaning is always the first step!
 
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It’s the 408C version. I’m really impressed with it, certainly nasty stinky stuff, but it really does wake-up idlers and also ancient rubber-coated wires etc. It enables any hard shiny crust to the rubber to be rubbed off with a rag and the end result is a lot more grippy and pliable. I’d still love to see the TD-124 community produce a really accurate clone of the original idler with a really high-quality rubber, it is the one last part I’d like to swap out. I’ve got two and they are both fine, probably as good as any non NOS, but even so I’d buy a new one if available at a non-LOLprice. Whilst I’ve never tried one I’m just not convinced the metal disc plus o-ring types have enough compliance. I feel the rubber section needs to be larger than that to sink vibration.
 
Tony L said:
............ I’d still love to see the TD-124 community produce a really accurate clone of the original idler with a really high-quality rubber, it is the one last part I’d like to swap out. I’ve got two and they are both fine, probably as good as any non NOS, but even so I’d buy a new one if available at a non-LOLprice............
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Might this be your answer @ +/- £249.00 (CHF 290)?? :)

New Replacement for the Idler Wheel

www.schopper.ch www.schopper.ch
Regards
Mike K.
 
mjkelshaw said:
Might this be your answer @ +/- £249.00 (CHF 290)?? :)
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I’m not sure. It looks very nicely made, looks to follow the original design, but the few comments I’ve seen from folk who have tried one suggests it is rather hard and if anything noisier than a decent 50 year old original. As such I’m not paying £250 to review it here! I’d possibly pay that for a perfectly flat NOS original though, but no rush as the two I have are about an 8 or 9/10 I guess, and have been helped both by the Rubber Renue linked upthread and replacing the bronze bushings with Audio Silente, so they run smoothly without slop.
 
I'm sure someone will have taken some noise measurements of the Audiosilente idler vs a good original. I hope to be able to do this myself soon but I'm still on the hunt for a charge amplifier at a sensible price.

Woodsong Audio have this to say on their TD124 restoration service guide:

"A new idler wheel from AudioSilente is installed. We are open to using the original idler wheel, sometimes these are good (quiet), but the AudioSilente idler wheel is extremely quiet, every time. We use our own proprietary drive O-Ring with the AS idler wheel, as we have found one that is demonstrably quieter than the O-Rings that are provided with the idler wheel."

It's interesting what they say about the O-rings. My Audiosilente wheel came with four O-rings to choose from, two harder black (nitrile?) ones and two softer (silicone?) ones, with a fatter and thinner option of each. I spent quite some time swapping the rings over and listening to the noise generated using a mechanics stethoscope and it quickly became apparent that the softer red O-rings were much quieter against the stepped pulley. I settled on the fatter red ring on mine and it seems very good to me. I wonder if A.S. were only supplying the black rings at the time Woodsong Audio wrote the above piece?
 
I had a go this afternoon at comparing some idler wheels. I was able to compare an original idler, an Audiosilente idler with ground o-ring and an Audiosilente with non-ground o-ring. Both Audiosilente wheels had the thicker red o-ring on.

The Audiosilente with the ground ring was the quietest, closely followed by the Audiosilente with non-ground ring. There wasn't much between the two A.S. wheels at all. I was surprised to find the original idler wheel I tested was significantly noisier.

I must stress though that this is only a sample size of one. It is well known that original idlers vary considerably in how noisy they are. It could well be that another original idler would be much quieter.
 
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Just gave my 124 its annual service, which happens every couple of years. One thing, of several, that I did was to swap-out my motor bearing screws with Mike’s (pictured here on eBay, but I’m sure he’ll sell direct) as I never liked the way I’d refitted them after drilling out the original rivets. I ended up with the bolts and nuts ‘Linn tight’ just as a safety feature as I didn’t want to risk the nuts vibrating loose and damaging the motor. Using nylock nuts never occurred to me, I didn’t even realise they came so small (I only know them from skateboard wheels!). Anyway, they are superb and enable rebuilding the motor with a little slack, which I suspect is how the original rivets were. It certainly went back together easily to a quiet running position. I did some other stuff e.g. swapping the idler washer for one of Mike’s new teflon ones, which involves slightly adjusting the running height.

As suggested in the very first post anyone reading this thread for hints and tips should read it backwards from the newest to the oldest, so take my pictures early upthread of the motor bearing retainers cranked down with normal nuts and bolts as obsolete. With the new bolts and nylock nuts I just did them up until it stopped, and then backed-off a bit. They are not tight, but there is tension in the spring-clip things that hold the bronze bushings, so not loose either. I suspect this will both reduce vibration/resonance and enable easier alignment of the bushings.

All seems to be running fine, and good to check for wear etc as I’ve been using the deck a lot over the past couple of years. All the wear points seem fine, motor spindle looking great, main bearing fine etc. I’m certainly not sticking any noticeable wear anywhere.

PS I’m sure I’ll end up buying an AudioSilente wheel at some point, I’m sure it is great, especially the ground one. I’m likely over-thinking it just because vintage idlers (Thorens, Garrard etc) had a far thicker rubber area. I think I’d like to replace my motor coils at some point too, not due to any fault, just because the wiring is a bit manky and just doesn’t solder well to the voltage selector thingy.
 
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I’ve had an Audio Silente ideal wheel here for about 2 years. I put it in right away when it arrived but swapped it out for the original after a few months and couldn’t be sure there was any difference so left the original in. Tonight I put the AS back in and it’s clearly quieter than the original. Some high frequency noise has vanished. A good result. Another thing happened…after replacing the top platter I seem to have ended up with less up/down wobble.
 
The Audiosilente idler really is good... the original was left engaged for years on my 124 so it was the most economical option to get the deck running. The thrust surface can be a source of noise so that is another variable you can play with.
 
Hello for the first time, and I value all the posts in this thread.

On the subject of 'annual' service, I have a 124/II which was fully refurbished about 7 years ago, and I haven't done anything to it since. I don't use it very often, maybe once or twice a week. Then when I travel I may not use it for a month or more. I wonder what might need servicing after all this time? I am thinking mainly of oiling and/or cleaning -- it seems to run fine and is quiet (to my ears).
 
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