Red WE500C/D Repair time!!!

[twocvbloke]

Well, starting off under the bonnet as it were, I've found a rather major fault, the coil for the ringer is broken, it's loose, looks like it's had impact damage, and I think the coil may have either shorted or broken wires, so, the phone won't ring as is, annoyingly...

I'll have a fiddle, but, I'm not sure if I can sort this one out...

[twocvbloke]

Well hot diggety dawg (sorry, came over all southern american there!)!!!! I got the ringer to work, and all it took was a slip of paper to stop the coil shorting out and moving a little spring thingy, and it's working!!! 

I'll have to make the coil repair a bit more permanent, but I'm happy now...

I love my old BT 286A Linesman phone, it really helps when it comes to testing phones...

[Adam]

I'll have to make the coil repair a bit more permanent

Nail polish, perhaps?

[twocvbloke]

Nail polish, perhaps?

If I had any, that could work...

I was thinking of using some heat-shrink tubing, as the coil is loose without the paper wedge, and heatshirink tubing should add just the right amount of thickness to hold it steady on the metal strips (presumably a form of iron core in a transformer?), and would be electrically insulating too, it's a two-bird stone...

The plastic case is next, as is the handset, looks like someone tried to scrape off a label (I bet it was for a funeral home!!) from the handset using a table knife, then later polished it without sanding first...

And how to I safely remove the dial fingerwheel? It's not obvious how it's meant to come off... 

[HarrySmith]

Turn the dial as far as it will go. There will be a small hole at the 5 o'clock position, inseret your fingerwheel removal tool to release latch and turn fingerwheel further to remove it. If you don't have a tool you can use a paperclip, a push pin or a piece of stiff wire.

[twocvbloke]

Turn the dial as far as it will go. There will be a small hole at the 5 o'clock position, inseret your fingerwheel removal tool to release latch and turn fingerwheel further to remove it. If you don't have a tool you can use a paperclip, a push pin or a piece of stiff wire.

Thanks, I'll try that next year, sounds simple enough to sort out...

[twocvbloke]

Well, I got the dial apart according to instructions, bent a needle in the process, good job I don't sew though!!!

Anyway, got it all stripped back and the plastic cleaned, the dial had been shoved over to the left (I used the black WE500's case to align it), so I'm wondering if it was squashed in storage or something, resulting in an off-centre dial and distorted & cracked case...

The dial label cover had been pulled off with a wrench it seems, cos the metal retainer on the back had been twisted, and the cover itself damaged where it's been forced out, with bits broken off, so I'll have to do what I did with the black WE500 and cheat, using a cut-up cola bottle to make a new plastic cover for the dial label...

And, there was a hand-written number on the back of that label too, another Seattle number it seems...

And I took a pic of the Red & Black together, before cleaning the Red up, just cos I could... 

[GG]

It takes a lot of force to bend the dial bracket on an old 500.  That kind of damage would be unlikely in storage. 

More likely the phone was on a desk or table and someone tripped over the cord, yanking it onto the floor.  A flight through the air with a hard landing like that could produce that kind of damage.  And there's probably no other electrical or electronic device in the house that could take a flying fall like that and survive at all.

[twocvbloke]

Well, the dial bracket is of the 2-arm sort, I've noticed on McHeath's 1950-base WE500 that older ones have 3-arm dial brackets which would definitely take some force to bend (though I'd say the dial would break first before any bending would happen), but, yeah, the more I look, the more impact damage is the likely cause, I found one of the plungers is missing plastic from the end that presses on the hookswitch, and looks like it may have been broken through impact...

Still, the phone works fine, and I temporarily fitted it with a GPO 700-series conversion line cord with a BT plug on the other end, the cables pretty nasty in appearance, but works fine as is, I want to get a red version though, to match the phone... 

And there's probably no other electrical or electronic device in the house that could take a flying fall like that and survive at all.

I don't know about that, my laptop that I'm currently using (Toshiba Portege M300) has fallen 5 feet onto a hard floor a few times and suffered no more than a slight dent in a couple of places and the CD drive falling out, and my mobile phone, a Samsung GalaxyS GT-I9000, has hit the floor so many times I'm surprised I haven't broken it yet...

[twocvbloke]

Well, I got the thing superglued and strapped up this morning, and I'll have some sanding to do cos the plastic wouldn't sit straight in the crack, so, I'll have to sand that down until it's even, and hopefully it won't be too obvious... 

Still, I'm glad I had a pack of large "#84" rubber bands from Staples to help with the repair, I bought those a few years ago to make a gasket for a custom bag setup for my Kirby Vacuette hand-vac, and haven't had another use for them since!!!

And I was watching Ironside too this morning, and happened to spot a nice ivory WE500 in use...

[twocvbloke]

Well, I can claim success, I've removed the rubber bands, it held, and I've carefully shaved down the hump where the plastic had lifted up through deformation, all I need to do now is to sand & polish and it'll be right as rain, I know the crack will never visually disappear, but so long as it's close, I'll be happy...

Obligatory pictures!!: