I've got an old Kenwood KR-4400 receiver that I am wanting to do some minor work on. I already have a can of DeoxIT, and was able to spray it on the Volume/Balance control. But the other controls are going to be a bit more difficult, and I want to replace the lamps for the display while I am in there. All the other controls are underneath a plastic housing that both holds the lights and has a guide pulley on either end for the tuner control. It looks like there are only two screws holding it in, but the cord is already tight and I am worried about breaking it or tangling it if I remove the screws and it gets loose. Because the lights can only be removed from the front of this plastic housing there is no way around it. Am I correct in believing the correct approach would be to remove the two screws, then lay the plastic housing back toward the center of the receiver unit? If I do that I think I can slip the tuner cord off the pulleys and get access to the lamps. With the plastic housing out of the way I should also have clear access to use DeoxIT on the rest of the controls. Once everything is complete I would slip the tuner cord back on to the pulleys, then rotate the plastic housing back into position where I can refasten the two screws. Rotating it back into position is where the tuner cord risks snapping. As I said, the cord is pretty tight in its assembled position. If the tuner cord snaps, the receiver unit will probably be toast, as it looks like a fairly complicated process of restringing it--and that's if I can even find a replacement cord for a 40+ year old receiver.
Am I on the right track in the way I described what I want to do, or is there a better, "by the book" way to expose the controls and gain access to the lamps? There are only 4 or 5 lamps, and 2 of them still work so I do have some illumination on part the frequency panel. It's the signal strength meter that is dark. Because of their location I haven't been able to see what kind of lamps are being used, and have no idea if I can even find new bulbs to replace them. I can see part of the glass on the bulbs, and they pretty much look like the bulbs used in old flashlights. But I have no idea if they have threaded bases, or are some kind of a press in bulb. If all this is relatively easy to do I'm down for the struggle. But if the whole thing is risky business I can always live with it like it is and tweak on the controls when the static kicks in, or when one channel cuts out. Frustrating, but still better the wasting an otherwise good receiver that sounds great.
Thanks for any help.
