Location: Bailey, CO
Symptoms: Needed adjusting and tuning, front door grill repair, broken bubble tube

This jukebox is a beauty, with a wonderful patina that I don’t see very often because it still had its original plastics and the original chrome has worn off most of the metal.  Most jukeboxes of this vintage have had their plastics replaced and their metal re-chromed.  My initial instinct was to replace the plastics and make it look like new.  But the old plastics with their muted transparency really grew on me.  Besides, it doesn’t look like anyone is still making reproduction plastics for this model.

Wurlitzer 850 Jukebox at night (Click for larger)

And because the German Wurlitzer company recently made reproductions, the patina sets this one apart.

Daytime view

On to the repairs…

There were a lot of small problems with the mechanism because it was gummed up.  It looked like the mech was cleaned sometime in the 1990’s so there wasn’t a ton of old grease.  It just needed some fresh lube.  It also needed some adjustments as the turntable wasn’t lifting high enough and it wasn’t tripping correctly at the end of the records.

The amp didn’t  sound good, but it turned out the needle wasn’t seated into the cartridge correctly.

Some of the wiring in the switch junction box wasn’t looking safe, so I rewired it.  Some of it previously had been bypassed.

The left bubble tube was broken due to a blow to the lower grill castings of the jukebox, probably during moving. Unfortunately it broke the threaded anchor points for the screws in the castings. I removed the grill castings and used some metal epoxy to attach some new standoffs and reinforce one that was remaining.

Rear of front grill casting with new threaded standoff attached.

The speaker bushings were replaced with new ones, as the old rubber bushings were brittle and broken.

Everything was looking, sounding and working pretty well when it was done.  The repairs were performed over the course of a couple of months.