I bought a Pioneer PL-516 for cheap recently with the intention of rebuilding and flipping it. As purchased the belt was gone but the motor ran when the tonearm was forcibly moved; it was mechanically bound somehow inside the plinth. A Grado F3+ cartridge was present on the tonearm which I took as a sign that at one time this turntable was cared for. Upon teardown I found that the automatic mechanism on the bottom of the tonearm had jumped track and thus bound up. With the adjustment specs from the service manual in hand I disassembled the automatic mechanism and got everything realigned correctly and moving freely. A new belt was installed along with replacing the caps on the motor control board (kit available on ebay). The PL-516 motor control board provides separate fine adjustments for both 33 and 45 rpm and with the coarse speed adjustment on the tonearm base set in the middle both fine adjustments were able to be dialed in. Standard cleaning and lubing of all switches and pots along with the motor board cap replacement and new belt had speed holding rock solid. The turntable appeared to be in good condition other than whatever heavy handedness had caused the tonearm automatic mechanism to be askew and I found nothing broken or finicky; the parts are pretty hardy.
The PL-516 has a heavy particle board plinth covered in vinyl. The power transformer and motor are both mounted to a small steel sub-chassis bolted to the steel bottom plate and isolated from the chassis with rubber bumpers; a nice touch. The cast metal tonearm plate assembly bolts onto the top of the plinth and can be easily removed as a whole after unplugging a few connectors and switches without having to touch the tonearm wires themselves. Once I had all running correctly I swapped it into my system and realized immediately I preferred this combo to the Technics SL-B2/Shure M97 combo I had previously used. So much for the plan to flip the Pioneer!
Once I decided to keep the turntable I stripped it back down to veneer the plinth. The vinyl stripped easily with the help of a heat gun and then a scraper stripped the remaining glue. A quick hit all over with 80 grit on a palm sander to clean and square the corners and the plinth was ready for veneer. I prefer to use paper backed veneer and contact cement and had enough scraps of zebrawood on hand for this project. Veneering is straight forward but covers all the screw hole locations for the hardware to bolt back on. Often times these can be marked onto paper and located once again after veneering but in this case I used a tiny pin vise twist drill to drill pilot holes from the top and completely through the bottom of the plinth. This way once the veneer was applied I could drill upwards with the same tiny drill to make a hole in the veneer to locate the screws.
Platter removed along with steel top plate. The entire tonearm assembly is held in by the four remaining screws and can be removed as well after unplugging and/or removing the switches, neon and tonearm wires. Motor sub chassis is at top left with transformer hiding underneath. All four corners of this sub-chassis rest on large rubber bumpers to isolate vibration. Motor control board is just below motor and mounts inverted. The two small holes on left side of motor board allow independent adjustment of 33 and 45 rpm speeds. There are also holes in bottom plate to allow access to these adjustments.
Plinth veneered, stained and with two thin coats of water based poly. I didn't have a veneer scrap large enough to cover the entire top so had to use two pieces, but the grain of the zebrawood makes the seam invisible. New RCA cables were wired into the tonearm connector and out the back at the stock location. These are quite thicker than the originals so care must be taken to ensure they don't disrupt operation of the automatic mechanism.
Overall view in place. Dust cover needs to be sanded and polished. I thought of painting the tonearm base satin black but now feel I prefer the factory almost champagne color.
Closeup of plinth.
This turntable drives a Pearl 2 phono preamp and though I had no complaints of the Technics SL-B2/Shure M97 previously in place, the Pioneer PL-516/Grado F3+ combo is the clear winner to me. The Pioneer does everything better and is far quieter. I experimented with swapping cartridges between the turntables and in my opinion the Technics sounded best with the Shure cartridge and the Pioneer best with the Grado cartridge. Not a bad find for a broken PL-516!
The PL-516 has a heavy particle board plinth covered in vinyl. The power transformer and motor are both mounted to a small steel sub-chassis bolted to the steel bottom plate and isolated from the chassis with rubber bumpers; a nice touch. The cast metal tonearm plate assembly bolts onto the top of the plinth and can be easily removed as a whole after unplugging a few connectors and switches without having to touch the tonearm wires themselves. Once I had all running correctly I swapped it into my system and realized immediately I preferred this combo to the Technics SL-B2/Shure M97 combo I had previously used. So much for the plan to flip the Pioneer!
Once I decided to keep the turntable I stripped it back down to veneer the plinth. The vinyl stripped easily with the help of a heat gun and then a scraper stripped the remaining glue. A quick hit all over with 80 grit on a palm sander to clean and square the corners and the plinth was ready for veneer. I prefer to use paper backed veneer and contact cement and had enough scraps of zebrawood on hand for this project. Veneering is straight forward but covers all the screw hole locations for the hardware to bolt back on. Often times these can be marked onto paper and located once again after veneering but in this case I used a tiny pin vise twist drill to drill pilot holes from the top and completely through the bottom of the plinth. This way once the veneer was applied I could drill upwards with the same tiny drill to make a hole in the veneer to locate the screws.
Platter removed along with steel top plate. The entire tonearm assembly is held in by the four remaining screws and can be removed as well after unplugging and/or removing the switches, neon and tonearm wires. Motor sub chassis is at top left with transformer hiding underneath. All four corners of this sub-chassis rest on large rubber bumpers to isolate vibration. Motor control board is just below motor and mounts inverted. The two small holes on left side of motor board allow independent adjustment of 33 and 45 rpm speeds. There are also holes in bottom plate to allow access to these adjustments.
Plinth veneered, stained and with two thin coats of water based poly. I didn't have a veneer scrap large enough to cover the entire top so had to use two pieces, but the grain of the zebrawood makes the seam invisible. New RCA cables were wired into the tonearm connector and out the back at the stock location. These are quite thicker than the originals so care must be taken to ensure they don't disrupt operation of the automatic mechanism.
Overall view in place. Dust cover needs to be sanded and polished. I thought of painting the tonearm base satin black but now feel I prefer the factory almost champagne color.
Closeup of plinth.
This turntable drives a Pearl 2 phono preamp and though I had no complaints of the Technics SL-B2/Shure M97 previously in place, the Pioneer PL-516/Grado F3+ combo is the clear winner to me. The Pioneer does everything better and is far quieter. I experimented with swapping cartridges between the turntables and in my opinion the Technics sounded best with the Shure cartridge and the Pioneer best with the Grado cartridge. Not a bad find for a broken PL-516!
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This turntable has been serving me well but speed was beginning to become erratic after extended listening sessions even though I'd originally cleaned all the pots and replaced the caps on the motor control board. I went ahead and replaced the the 33 rpm and 45 rpm 20K pots on the motor control board as well as the 5k speed fine adjust on the console (I'd already ruled out the speed switch causing problems by jumping it out of the circuit). Let the platter run for 6 hours and speed is still solid so this should be the end of it. Net cost of the three pots= $3.50
At this point all the caps on the motor control board have been replaced with an ebay kit, and now three more pots associated with speed control have been replaced. Should be good for another 30 years!
Two red circles on left are the 20K pots on underside of motor control board. One on right is the 5K fine adjust.
At this point all the caps on the motor control board have been replaced with an ebay kit, and now three more pots associated with speed control have been replaced. Should be good for another 30 years!
Two red circles on left are the 20K pots on underside of motor control board. One on right is the 5K fine adjust.
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