WAH! Turbo CD won't work

[7800fan]

After owning it for around 25 years, it finally stopped working. The CD mechanism just won't spin. I'm going under the assumption the lube went bad as there's quite a few web sites on this.

 

Looking on eBay, non working drive can reach $100 and working drive costs almost as much as a working Duo. Why is it that? Duo does not need the system card to boot CD and later Duo handles CD-R while virtually all of Turbo CD and PCE CD are really bad with CD-R (due to them being out before CD-R technology)

 

PS in case lube job fails, is there someone that can fix the drive? Assuming it's not the dreaded cracked gear, I think it needs recap but it's small and complicated for me.

[7800fan]

I started taking it apart and the first thing I did was to check the gears. It didn't want to turn at first so yeah dried lube. Still hoping it doesn't need recap.

[Osgeld]

look around the bases of the cap, does it look wet or like it was wet, if so then you will want to start thinking about a recap

[7800fan]

I didn't see any obvious sign of wet or leaking cap or discolored or bulging top. However that is just the CD drive. The base unit is a bitch to take a apart, I found a guide on pcenginefx forum, there's lots of solder brade to desolder, lots of cables to disconnect, lots of screws, etc. I think I'll just pay and let someone recap the base.

[7800fan]

Got white lithium grease, cleaned the old parts, applied the grease, put it back together, spend the next 30 minutes cursing whoever thought of using a tiny locking washer to hold the middle gear in (about the size of pin head).

 

Tested it with a CD game, it worked fine. Still I'll sooner pay someone than to take my CD apart again, it was a major pain in the butt to get all of the 100 or so tiny pieces in the right place without losing one piece or ending up with a leftover.