Always liked the look of these a bit like a mini FH-7, wanted one for a while but been waiting for a really nice cosmetic condition one, this one is nice So gave the outside a good clean, it was covered in a white dust looked like lint? so guessing it was bedside radio, which explains the good condition. took it apart to clean dust from the inside and sort the deck. With the back and front removed the deck is easy to remove just four screws and a lot of plugs. With the deck out I could see that the belts had gone hard, but there was another problem? More on that problem later, change the belts first there's two main belts and the counter belt this is important as it's also used for the auto stop detector rotation. There's a handy little hook to put the main belt on so when you put back plate on you can just lift it on to the motor pulley, thank you Sony. Belts done now the other problem, in the photo below (circled) you can just see the small white gear that rotates the head for forward and reverse. This should be on the metal shaft that protrudes from the head block, but clearly isn't where it should be. The next photo shows more clearly what's happened and there's a crack in the gear. With the gear removed it's a bit more than just a crack there's also a piece missing, on both my FH-7's this gear was also cracked, but no parts missing so I just epoxied them on to the shaft which worked well, I can't do this on this one because of the missing part. I thought about just locking the head in it's forward position, this would've been interesting because in reverse that side would be played backwards. I was thinking about how to repair this as I wanted the deck to work as it should, it was then that I realised I'd seen this same mechanism in another of my Sony boxes, but which one Then I suddenly remembered which box it was the tiny Sony CFS-F11S , amazing that this very small Sony has the same mechanism! Anyway this was already in pieces awaiting repair as the head was missing, now I know where to get one just that gear will be a problem. The two mechanisms side by side. So to cut a long story short the same gear was removed from the CFS-F11, it's made from a very different plastic and grey looks much stronger, maybe an update by Sony because of problems with that gear. New gear fitted Temporally put the repaired mechanism back in the CFS-9000 and it worked perfectly, very pleased. Now to sort the speakers both main front grills were loose and more white dust. Re-glued the grills back on the APM trims and cleaned up the speakers. Put it all back together a final test perfect Here's the end result, very nice indeed.
Damn thats a great resto, handy having that lil Sony available for parts, you made that look easy. Very nice looking Sony and i bet the sound is cracking.
Great work! Broken gears are one of the biggest P's ITA. I've thrown in the towel on few few decks for that reason. Gorgeous Sony. Passed up on a local CFD-5 for relatively cheap - Just wasn't doing it for me at the time. I'm kinda regretting it now.
Sounds very nice amazing bass, but only on mains power on battery power it has a much lower output. here's the specs: The amp chip is an STK4301 and it's output power is dependent on voltage supplied, on mains it gets around 30 volts which gives it maximum output, on battery power it only gets about 13 volts maximum output is 4.8 watts, so much less power but still sounds nice though. Yeah it turned out really nice, 5 SW bands not bad for a box, not much use without an external aerial though. I agree not long ago repaired my Philips 774 after finding a Philips mono with the same mechanism and good gears swapped them over with some minor mods. Been after a CFD-5 for a long time, I would have been all over it, I'd regret not getting it too.
Great stuff. You really do take excellent pictures. The CFS-9000 is a great box. I think mine went to Greece a couple of years back where I know it's in very safe hands.
I have one of these that I bought in a bulk deal, not really used it though. I would've killed for one back in the day as it's top quality Sony
Actually yours went to Italy -- but you're right, it's in very safe hands How are you doing in your new location, old goose?
Yeah, sll good here Sal. We're actually not far from you and are planning a visit to Sothern Italy as we speak.
Oh, you must definitely let me now! I'll pm to you my personal contacts, hope we can meet at some point
Minutes before posting this message, I realized: this topic's over two years old! (Notwithstanding an Australian member recently popping in to request help with parts.) Still, as others have been telling you, Dave: good going with restoring that Sony CFS-9000 and with reviving its tape-handling duties. (Though you seem to have permanently "borrowed" the cassette-deck mechanism from a smaller Sony product. Or was it just a part or two that you "reassigned" from the smaller to the bigger?) Yes, indeed: one the one hand, how could Sony share tape-deck machinery of its huge, stately CFS-9000 with a much smaller, arguably lowlier CFS-11S, shortwave band or not? On the other hand: I still think that CFS-9000 units are big, black boxy beauties in a collectably rare class. (Shared perhaps with JVC PC-R550s and Panasonic RX-CW200s ...)
I don't think you need a precision belt for the tape counter, I'd buy a pack with multiple sizes and try that out. Otherwise I'd contact Fix Your Audio, on the home page for a correct belt. Some of my nicer tape decks do require a tape counter belt, there's a counter on the digits, similar to a turntable strobe that, I think, helps the deck with a memory function. They don't seem to work without this belt.
Just an update I have finally worked out why the reverse and FF dont work. Its because the tape mechanism drops about 1.5mm too low when in stop mode. If I push from the bottom of the tape head slightly up the reverse and FF works perfect. It seems to have case of old tech droop gravity has taken its toll after 34 years. So I fixed it with a tooth pick cut down to size.
