'808 parts.... help my poor gap-toothed TR??!

[Dan Gendreau]

Heh, you and me both!

I Bought a busted 808 for $250 a month ago and I am in the process of
restoring it. I managed to get it working in about an hour! My 808 is
working great now, but it still needs a lot of TLC. Here is what I have
found so far:

- I was lucky enough to find an old CR8000 for $40. It has the exact same
knob caps, screws and many other components as the TR808.

- I found an exact replacement A/AB/B toggle switch in the Mouser catalog.
Its Part #10TS003 by Mountain Switch. Page 282 Item 'L' in the current
catalog.

- The [Start/Stop] and [Tap] keys were quite yellowed on mine, but I managed
to carefully pry the button caps off, wash them and replace the paper labels
with new laser printed ones. They are much brighter now, but still a little
yellow. I wish I could find replacement caps, but its better than it was.


I am also in the process of building a set of tonal mods, 3 knobs for each
drum. I am mounting them in a set of 6x3x1" project boxes. They will be
mounted along the back of the TR808 above the jacks like a mixer Meter
bridge so all the knobs line up with their corresponding drums.

I plan to go to a hobby store to match up some touch-up paint for my 808
front panel and also some silver for some scratches on my TB303. Does anyone
have suggestions/experiences with touch-up paint for their gear? Any other
808 restoration tips/resources?

Good Luck, let me know if you find anything else usefull for the 808.

I came up with a really simple DIN Sync splitter/trigger box that lets you
start/stop/trigger any DIN Sync slave by hand. If anyone is interested, i
can provide more details.

-Dan Gendreau