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Working on a green ITT 554

Started by Nilsog, July 12, 2011, 11:59:42 PM

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Nilsog

Hi everyone! I'm fairly new to the whole phone scene, and I've already got a couple of projects lined up I need to help with.

Firstly, I scored this 68 ITT 554 from a coworker whose mother died recently. When I first started looking into old phones I talked to him about where I might find one and he dropped this off at my house the next day. He told me it was a garage phone, which explains the grime all over it. Also, sorry I didn't remember to get a before picture before I already disassembled it and put it in the sink.

You can still see the grease and dirt caked to it. I couldn't handle the thing without ending up with greasy black hands.



It came out looking a lot cleaner, but now I've noticed that it seems faded in areas. Seems like there may have been stickers on it.





The hardwired handset cord was trashed, so I'm going to need another one.



The receiver cap is cracked as well, which doesn't bother me much but I probably will replace it if I can ever find another.



Heres the guts. I'm going to need some help hardwiring a modular cord on so I can use it.



Heres the oldest date I could find. Some of the parts had a year of 67.



So, to wrap it up-

I have to learn how to wire a new handset cord, as well as the modular cord. I also read another thread on some sort of hair product that seemed to bring back the color of the case... has anyone had a positive experience with that, and where can I find it in Maine? Last question is, where can I find a matching green cord and handset cap?

I appreciate any help you guys can give.

Ken
Ken

Kenny C

Nilsog,
Welcome to the forum.

Firstly if the cord does'nt have any breaks it will be fine to re-use. Here is a topic on how to do so. I bake mine at 200.

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=202.0

If your cord has a broken jacket here is the place to order from.

http://www.oldphoneworks.com/

Secondly. DO NOT put peroxide on a dark colored phone. It would do great damage to moss green. The peroxide treatment is for light colors only. Novus is the best thing to polish plastics with. Novus #2 is my polish of choice. and is avalible at your local Harley-Davidson shop.

In memory of
  Marie B.
1926-2010

Nilsog

The cord is trashed, broken in several places. Thanks for the link.

Will the polish remove the discoloration as well?

Oh, and thanks for the welcome!
Ken

Kenny C

The only way to remove the discoloration is through wet sanding. Dennis  Markham is the master of sanding and will probably chime in and tell you the best way to do it.
In memory of
  Marie B.
1926-2010

Dennis Markham

Thanks for the compliment Kenny but I'd hardly say I'm the Master at sanding.  There are a few members here that have had excellent results with their attempts at sanding.  Chuck Hensley and Jorge Amely are two of those members.

Sanding away discoloration is a huge job but improvements can be made to the plastic by using a series of wet-sand paper and a product called Micro-Mesh.  There have been some posts about this process here on the Forum.

One of the "Boards" of the forum is Sanding Plastic - Tips and Techniques.  It's listed in the Repair Techniques section.  I'll be glad to offer suggestions to specific questions either on this post or send me a personal message.

That handset cord looks like it's done its job and should probably be replaced.  There may be several sources for a replacement but as Kenny said Oldphoneworks is the first that comes to mind.  Perhaps if you make a "wanted" post in the Classifieds section, someone here may have one and a replacement green cap. In fact I'll look through my parts to see if I have one.

By the way, welcome to the Forum.

Nilsog

Thanks for the info and the welcome! I'll take a look at the other sections and see what I can accomplish. Luckily I dont have a penny in this phone yet, so the only thing I'll suffer if I mess it up is a case that doesn't look any better than it does.
Ken

Nilsog

Alright- I got the handset cord I ordered and wired it in using the diagram here for a regular 500. I also wired in a modular cord and plugged it in. I get a dial tone but its very faint, almost too faint to hear. I checked all the connections and everything seems ok. I called the phone and it rang nicely, but when I picked it up it was still very faint. There also seems to be a problem with the mic. I had a friend call and he couldn't hear me at all. dead silence.

So I even checked my other 500 I have, and everything was wired exactly the same. I swapped the parts in the handset thinking they might be bad, and got the same problem. Am I missing something? I also hooked my lineman set up to the network and got a strong dial tone, so it has to be something in the phone. Any advice is appreciated.
Ken

Dennis Markham

A dirty dial contact could also cause the problem you describe.  You might try getting a Q-tip and some alcohol and carefully cleaning the dial contacts.  I like to use compressed air after I clean them to blow away any cotton fibers that may have stuck to the contact point.  The hook switch contacts can be cleaned in a similar fashion.


Nilsog

Ken

LarryInMichigan

It sounds like the handset cord might be connected incorrectly.  On the network, the red and one of the white wires should go to the outermost contact (labeled 'R'), the black wire should go to the next contact, and the other white wire should go to the third contact.  In the handset, the red and black wires go to the transmitter, and the two whites go to the receiver.  

If the receiver shunt in the dial is not opening fully, you would hear very little volume from the receiver, but the transmitter should still work.  You can temporarily disconnect the receiver shunt by disconnecting one of the white wires from the dial to the 'R' or 'GN' network contacts.

Larry

Nilsog

I tried disconnecting the receiver shunt, but the volume did not change. Also, I have different colored wires in my handset- red, yellow, green and black. I have red and yellow attached to R, Black on B, and Green on GN. I also tried cleaning the contacts with alcohol. Got a lot of black stuff off, but no difference.
Ken

Dennis Markham

Sounds like they sent you an AE cord with those colors.  OK, so the wire doesn't know what color it is...

You have the colors on the right terminals at the network end.

At the handset end you should then have Red to the transmitter along with black.  At the receiver end would be green and yellow which are substitutes for white.

Nilsog

#12
Sorry its taken me a while to get back to this... I had to take a break because I was getting frustrated.

Anyhow, I took some more pictures.

Here you can see where I've wired the handset in.



and here are the wires coming out of the cord- they are contradictory to what you said Dennis, not in color but in cut. The wires are pre cut so I can't have them set up the way you said, in the handset. Do you think that may be what the problem is? Someone messed up when they were making this cord?



Ken

Dennis Markham

IF I'm not mistaken, that cord is designed for an AE telephone and cut that way.  If you ordered that through Oldphoneworks, I'd contact them and let them know you got the wrong cord (you need one that fits Western Electric/Northern Electric).  If you didn't specify when you ordered they may have just flipped a coin.  Perhaps you can send it back for a trade-in.  If they sent it to you in error, they'll more than likely send you another.  But those colors and lengths were made for AE phones.

Nilsog

I bought it from the ericofon site you recommended, it was labelled 'Western Electric Green' so I assumed it was the correct cord. I sent them an email to see if I can get it swapped out.
Ken