Cleaning Mark III...

[Anonymous]

My Mark III blue stripe isn't sounding right. It kind of sounds like it's clipping a little bit, like a scratchy pot, whenever I play a chord or such. I checked all the filter caps and they all look fine. I'm pretty sure I just need to clean all of the pots, jacks, and EQ sliders. How would I go about doing this? Is there any this else I should check?

 

[Boogiebabies]

Your amp should be service every year with a full cleaning of the pots, tube sockets and check of the filter caps, tubes, jacks etc. I do a spring cleaning on every amp I have and get in. In a lot of cases of Boogie's with the SUS-4 mounting they let dust get in from the gap between the chassis and cabinet. It some cases after years of electrical attraction and the fan forcing dust in there the inner chassis can look like a vaccum bag exploded. In these cases I uses a micro fiber cloth and then clean all the dirty circuit traces with PCB cleaner or denatured alcohol and a Q-Tip. I use Caig De-Oxit on the pots followed with Ca-Lube and I use De-Oxit on all tube sockets followed by Caig Pro-Gold. I generally use a curved dental pick to gently scrub carbon and heavy oxidation. A good old fashioned pipe cleaner works great as well. I then use a straight dental pick to tighten the sockets. Finally I soak the grounds with De-Oxit and if they do not look clean enough I remove the star ground washer and scrub it with Scotch-Brite until it shines. Use Scotch-Brite pads to gently clean corroded buss wire and all 1/4 in jack contacts after a good dose of contact cleaner. So spending an hour with your baby once a year will lead to a seriously reliable and trouble free tone monster.

DO NOT TOUCH THE EQ FADERS !!! ONCE CLEANED THEY WILL NEVER LUBRICATE CORRECTLY AGAIN.

 

[Buddy]

What kind of Whisky are you drinking ?

I'd suggest some Rebel Yell ... Its got a nice vanilla and smokey thing happining .

But anyway. Clean the pots .







Masskrugs

 

[boogietone]

UUGH! I just cleaned my MKIV and doused the sliders with cleaners. Oh well. Seems to be working okay. Except my fan died and now the footswitch is noisy. I don't think I'll be taking my stuff apart anymore. Good luck! :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

Your amp should be service every year with a full cleaning of the pots, tube sockets and check of the filter caps, tubes, jacks etc. I do a spring cleaning on every amp I have and get in. In a lot of cases of Boogie's with the SUS-4 mounting they let dust get in from the gap between the chassis and cabinet. It some cases after years of electrical attraction and the fan forcing dust in there the inner chassis can look like a vaccum bag exploded. In these cases I uses a micro fiber cloth and then clean all the dirty circuit traces with PCB cleaner or denatured alcohol and a Q-Tip. I use Caig De-Oxit on the pots followed with Ca-Lube and I use De-Oxit on all tube sockets followed by Caig Pro-Gold. I generally use a curved dental pick to gently scrub carbon and heavy oxidation. A good old fashioned pipe cleaner works great as well. I then use a straight dental pick to tighten the sockets. Finally I soak the grounds with De-Oxit and if they do not look clean enough I remove the star ground washer and scrub it with Scotch-Brite until it shines. Use Scotch-Brite pads to gently clean corroded buss wire and all 1/4 in jack contacts after a good dose of contact cleaner. So spending an hour with your baby once a year will lead to a seriously reliable and trouble free tone monster.

DO NOT TOUCH THE EQ FADERS !!! ONCE CLEANED THEY WILL NEVER LUBRICATE CORRECTLY AGAIN.

Wow, I'd love to be the one to buy an amp off of you! And thanks for that warning. Are the new mark IV sliders different from the Mark III sliders? Because I went into GC the other day and the sliders on a Mark IV combo slid very easily compared to my Mark III. I will be cleaning my amp as soon as I find a place to get this deoxit stuff.

 

[Boogiebabies]

Your amp should be service every year with a full cleaning of the pots, tube sockets and check of the filter caps, tubes, jacks etc. I do a spring cleaning on every amp I have and get in. In a lot of cases of Boogie's with the SUS-4 mounting they let dust get in from the gap between the chassis and cabinet. It some cases after years of electrical attraction and the fan forcing dust in there the inner chassis can look like a vaccum bag exploded. In these cases I uses a micro fiber cloth and then clean all the dirty circuit traces with PCB cleaner or denatured alcohol and a Q-Tip. I use Caig De-Oxit on the pots followed with Ca-Lube and I use De-Oxit on all tube sockets followed by Caig Pro-Gold. I generally use a curved dental pick to gently scrub carbon and heavy oxidation. A good old fashioned pipe cleaner works great as well. I then use a straight dental pick to tighten the sockets. Finally I soak the grounds with De-Oxit and if they do not look clean enough I remove the star ground washer and scrub it with Scotch-Brite until it shines. Use Scotch-Brite pads to gently clean corroded buss wire and all 1/4 in jack contacts after a good dose of contact cleaner. So spending an hour with your baby once a year will lead to a seriously reliable and trouble free tone monster.

DO NOT TOUCH THE EQ FADERS !!! ONCE CLEANED THEY WILL NEVER LUBRICATE CORRECTLY AGAIN.

Wow, I'd love to be the one to buy an amp off of you! And thanks for that warning. Are the new mark IV sliders different from the Mark III sliders? Because I went into GC the other day and the sliders on a Mark IV combo slid very easily compared to my Mark III. I will be cleaning my amp as soon as I find a place to get this deoxit stuff.

GC has De-Oxit and Fader Lube in the Pro Audio Section.

 

[Boogiebabies]

What kind of Whisky are you drinking ?

I'd suggest some Rebel Yell ... Its got a nice vanilla and smokey thing happining .

But anyway. Clean the pots .







Masskrugs

Muscle relaxers and Aleve cocktails.

 

[Boogiebabies]

UUGH! I just cleaned my MKIV and doused the sliders with cleaners. Oh well. Seems to be working okay. Except my fan died and now the footswitch is noisy. I don't think I'll be taking my stuff apart anymore. Good luck! :wink:

The only reason I strongly suggest not cleaning the faders is that they use a thick gease lubricant to prevent the faders from falling during playing vibration, which incidentally happened to me after I cleaned one. After ordering a replacement fader for the 80Hz I saw how the lube was very thick and how I could use a thick dielectric grease and a syringe to repair the one I had in the amp. It was still a major PITA !!! If you remove the lube and the fader just grinds on the resistor element fir a while, be prepared to order 5 new faders, remove the power board and faceplate and get to soldering. It is not a pleasant though.

 

[boogietone]

UUGH! I just cleaned my MKIV and doused the sliders with cleaners. Oh well. Seems to be working okay. Except my fan died and now the footswitch is noisy. I don't think I'll be taking my stuff apart anymore. Good luck! :wink:

The only reason I strongly suggest not cleaning the faders is that they use a thick gease lubricant to prevent the faders from falling during playing vibration, which incidentally happened to me after I cleaned one. After ordering a replacement fader for the 80Hz I saw how the lube was very thick and how I could use a thick dielectric grease and a syringe to repair the one I had in the amp. It was still a major PITA !!! If you remove the lube and the fader just grinds on the resistor element fir a while, be prepared to order 5 new faders, remove the power board and faceplate and get to soldering. It is not a pleasant though.

Sounds like my MKIV will be going home to Mesa Boogie one of these days for new sliders. If I can't clean my amp without jacking it up I probably shouldn't be trying to solder on it. Thanks for all the info BB! Always a huge help.

 

[Boogiebabies]

UUGH! I just cleaned my MKIV and doused the sliders with cleaners. Oh well. Seems to be working okay. Except my fan died and now the footswitch is noisy. I don't think I'll be taking my stuff apart anymore. Good luck! :wink:

The only reason I strongly suggest not cleaning the faders is that they use a thick gease lubricant to prevent the faders from falling during playing vibration, which incidentally happened to me after I cleaned one. After ordering a replacement fader for the 80Hz I saw how the lube was very thick and how I could use a thick dielectric grease and a syringe to repair the one I had in the amp. It was still a major PITA !!! If you remove the lube and the fader just grinds on the resistor element fir a while, be prepared to order 5 new faders, remove the power board and faceplate and get to soldering. It is not a pleasant though.

Sounds like my MKIV will be going home to Mesa Boogie one of these days for new sliders. If I can't clean my amp without jacking it up I probably shouldn't be trying to solder on it. Thanks for all the info BB! Always a huge help.

A little blast of fader lube should extend the life. I am still trying to find out what grease is used so we can just repair them. It's some thick clear goo that gives the faders that nice resisitance to movement. Having the spare part and looking at it, it's like a clear wheel bearing grease...

 

[diafebus]

PICTURES!!
we want to see it :twisted:

 

[Boogiebabies]

PICTURES!!
we want to see it :twisted:

Not to be mean or hijack this post, but I do not want to be part of the global copyright infringement of the IIC+ preamp and power board. If you guys in Spain or Italy, or wherever you are want to make your own C+, please do, just don't involve me. I'm not doing the legwork for someone to break US law.