Rockola 440 record selection are problems

Alright, I have recently purchased a rockola 440 and everything seems to work on it except for the arm that selects the records. The arm on the right of the turntable turns and does it's thing the tt turns and if I twist the little knob on the underside of the gear it will move the arm over and lay the record on the tt and I can play a record but when it ends the arm picks the record up and tries to put it back but the motor starts skipping on the gears when it gets to the point to put the record back in the wire rack. That is the only thing I have to repair to have this running like new. If anyone knows what might be the problem PLEASE let me know. Thank you. Mike

Mike,

Check to make sure the gear teeth for the gripper/trunion assembly are all intact as well at the gear attached to the output shaft of the gripper motor. These two gear should mesh together snugly with each other, but not jammed together.

Moreover, it really sounds like a gear tooth is missing inside the gear box of the gripper motor. You will notice that the output shaft is perpendicular to the actual motor armature. The armature has a worm drive gear at its top that meshes with a reduction gear attached to the output shaft. You will have to extract the motor and remove the gearbox coverplate to inspect these gears.

Finally, you may have to clean the commutator bars of the armature and re-seat the brushes to achieve "start-up". I have seen this happen on motors and rotating the armature shaft by hand will get the motor started.

Respectfully,

David

On 11/9/2010 6:38 PM, Mha8649 wrote:
Alright, I have recently purchased a rockola 440 and everything seems to
work on it except for the arm that selects the records. The arm on the
right of the turntable turns and does it's thing the tt turns and if I
twist the little knob on the underside of the gear it will move the arm
over and lay the record on the tt and I can play a record but when it
ends the arm picks the record up and tries to put it back but the motor
starts skipping on the gears when it gets to the point to put the record
back in the wire rack. That is the only thing I have to repair to have
this running like new. If anyone knows what might be the problem PLEASE
let me know. Thank you. Mike



Please clarify how it picks up a record.

Does the magazine (with all the records) rotate and stop at the selected
record?

If it stops at the selected record do you have to turn the motor by hand
picking up the record and laying it on the TT all by hand?... Or or does
the motor run at all in that cycle? If it runs, do the gears slip?

When trying to put the record back and it skips on the gears, can you
see the gears that are slipping or is it inside the motor? If you can
see the gears slipping the motor probably needs a little adjustment so
it meshes with the gripper gear better. Still that is only part of the
problem.

Tony Miklos
East Tennessee

Sorry for the delay. The magazine does not rotate. If I turn the little knob on the motor the armature will move the record over and lay it down. When the record is done the needle moves back over and the armature picks the record up and tries to put it back but half way thru the process when the record is in a 90 degree angle