TD 135 noise vs Rega Planar 3

[Inigo71]

Hi Everyone.
I´ve always been amazed by Thorens TT as my grand father had a very old one in the 50s. Later on I bought a TD 224 that I am planing to restore and a TD 135 that I just restored. I cleaned all the parts, including the motor and re-oil everything.
The TT works beautifully, the speed is al right, the stop mechanism works fine and the BTD 12 tone arm tracks very well my records. I installed a Denon DL 110 cartridge and sounds very good. The thing is that when I place my ear very close to the TT I can hear some flutter noise, a bit metallic, it looks to me that it is from the step pulley, the platter is totally silent. Is is normal? I have a Rega planar 3 TT and it is totally silent. Is this a problem with my tD135 or is it typical from idler TTs? I must say that the TD 135 sounds great, but the Rega beats the thorens. Is there any way to improve the Thorens?

Thanks in advance for your help

[tele88]

The noise you are hearing is probely the step pulley try to remove the belt from the motor,is it gone ?
You must polish the motor pulley and steppulley ,clean belt after that check the bearing fom the steppulley and bearing axe on damage ,if so polish it and replace
nylotron bearing plate or turn it arround.
After that fill the bearing with oil about 20 w 40 not thin oil.

regards
Jaap

[Inigo71]

Thanks very much for the reply. In order to polish the step pulley bearing, what kind of product do I have to use? liquid polish, very fine emery paper, what grade?
Thanks very much.

[tele88]

Not sandpaper but a mild polish Commadant for example they use it for car cleaning bussiness.
Look for scrathes on the ax from the steppulley , if you dissable the idlerwheel and let the motor turn you should hear your noise before revision offcourse.
Best is to put the steppulley in a lathe and polish it .
regards
Jaap

[zwarte-romantiek]

How often are you sitting with your ears very close to the turntable?

I hope you are gonna make some pictures of your TD-224 restoration and share them on this forum. I would love to see it.

Good luck,

Niels

[flavio81]

Later on I bought a TD 224 that I am planing to restore

(!!!)

"Mission:Impossible" theme sounds in the background...

[crofk]

Later on I bought a TD 224 that I am planing to restore

(!!!)

"Mission:Impossible" theme sounds in the background...

LOL How very true!!! It will be quite an undertaking. And well worth keeping us apprised of the progress being made by posting pictures of it.

kc

[Inigo71]

Thanks everybody for your support.
I´ve been very busy restoring the TD 135 and minimising different noises.
I polished all the axes and cleaned all the parts and relubricated all the bushings and motor with Joels Kit.

But the most important noise reduction came by replacing the motor bushings with jec965 kit, it made a huge improvement, now the motor is extremely silent.

Things improved a lot, but I still get a metallic noise coming from the step wheel, any suggestions?
The idler wheel also makes a bit of noise, but I think is due to the friction with the platter.

By the way anybody knows why is there a black painted area inside the step pulley.
I´ll post some pictures of the TD 135 later on

[Inigo71]

I want to share some pictures of my TD 135

[Inigo71]

I finished the restoration of the TD135, now It sounds very well, and the overall noise has been reduced a lot, now it is very silent. I´ve done some testing with my wife, to compare between the Rega and the Thorens using the same cartridge an ortofon OM5E and the sound is exactly the same, it is extremely difficult to know which one is playing. This result makes me wonder if it is worth buying extremely expensive TT any one with experience can really tell the difference between a REGA p3 and a 6.000$ TT?
Any way I love turtables.