Technics SL-J1 Drive Belt for Tonearm

The SL-J1 has extremely good engineering design, and apart from requiring some basic servicing, these machines continue to operate well without requiring much calibration. This model has two drive belts, one for spinning the turntable platter, and another for moving the gimbal suspension tonearm. Both of these will usually require replacing.

When you press the stop button, the tonearm usually moves to the home position on the extreme right and comes to rest there. If you find that it does not move all the way and, stops a few millimetres from home position, and you hear the sound of a motor constantly whirring away, then chances are that the belt requires replacing. The reason why it does that is that when the tonearm reaches home position, a sensor informs the microprocessor to cut power to the motor. However since it never reaches home position, the motor keeps whirring away.

The guide rail, which is a metal rod, along which the tonearm mechanism moves, will usually have grease that has turned into a treacle-like sticky substance over the decades. I had to remove all of that and replace it with fresh grease. The motor that drives the tonearm has a 25 mm diameter belt that had turned hard and deformed, and that too required changing. Luckily, I did not have to recalibrate the string or anything else, and I would rather keep the factory calibration. Just a basic service was all it needed and it now works as well as it did when new out of the factory.

I had to sell this turntable whilst it was on the bench at Peter Vis Labs, because I had over a dozen people lining up to buy it.

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