Hi everyone, nearly complete on restoration of a Sony Walkman WM-3. Replaced a bad 220uf cap, resoldered a broken wire on the jack board, deoxit on a noisy “Talk” button, new belts, lubed most of the moving parts, and kapton tape to replace the turned to goo tape originally holding the wires down. My last challenge is that I have the plastic part on the battery door that regularly fails, but I don’t have whatever spring mechanism it interfaces with. I can’t find any pictures of what everything is supposed to look like. One online pic made it look like a coil spring with 2 long legs that must lock in to the stamped metal slots or similar. Does anyone have a picture of the spring part or know where I can get one? Are there any other parts that I am missing? Do things look otherwise correct or is there any part of the back that looks broken? Detailed pics of individual parts and then assembly would be much appreciated. Thx. FYI I also posted this in a Facebook Forum but I’m thinking I’ll get a much faster response here…. Fun Fact: I purchased a WM-3 new at Specialized Sound in Madison WI the year they came out, but unfortunately sold it to a friend to buy a WM-10. Finally found a replacement WM-3 local to me a month or two ago with box and most of contents.
Hello and welcome This is the only photo I have of that Spring...the photo was taken a few years ago when I reconditioned my Wm3.. I hope it can help you
Found a small brass safety pin and seems like it’s working for now. I don’t know how the spring interfaces with the case so I just slid it in up to a couple of detents in the stamped silver metal part. It’s possible the spring has more bends at the ends that somehow engage in the cutouts but this is working for now. I’m just going to be extremely careful opening and closing. Attaching some pics so people can get a sense of sizing and roughly what I fabbed up. I was targeting 2 mm for hole size. Had to open up the original a bit but not much. Thanks again for the help!
