Hello all,
I recently purchased from a local club a Commodore 128D that was to say the least in rough condition. It looks like it was stored in a garage or basement for several years.

The guy I bought it from did a 24 hour burn-in test and the motherboard works perfectly. So that is a huge plus, he had also tried several peripherals in the various slots and they worked as well.

I'll post pictures later, but last night I gutted the system and started the prep for a mini restoration. I was able to remove the labels intact, and removed a few stickers from the front bezel.

The bezel is a bit rough, a couple of dents in the plastic, two holes drilled for device switching (they were broken) and slight discoloring of the plastic. This came reasonably clean after soaking in hot soapy water for a couple of hours.

The case was not so good, it has two prominent dents, one on the top and one on the bottom. I was able to smooth them out and now they are hard to see. Not perfect but real nice. I did a light sanding to remove some stains, rust, and ready it for painting. I hope to find a good color match with Krylon paint today. Amazing what cigarette smoke does to electronics.

The motherboard was amazingly clean except for the remains of a wolf spider that called it his\her home. It was still in there but had long since passed. The metal cover over the RCA video shield was rusty but cleaned up nice. I removed the shield cover from the video processor and checked the heat sink compound, it needs redone.
I sprayed the entire mobo with DeOxit and with a little work it looks great!

The power supply seems to be good, no signs of over heating of heat worn components.

The 1571 is decent looking, some pitting on the chassis but nothing worth a total disassemble of the drive. It had checked out in very good alignment. So a thorough cleaning of the heads, and lubing the drive should be all that's needed.

More on this project later.

Dan
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Am I the only one who find living spiders inside C64s? Though I know that they came from where they were stored, it is always a surprise: the latest one was found, living and running, into a breadbin bought some weeks ago.

Which method was used for sanding? Way too often there are C64s with signs of melted plastic, probably from soldering iron tip, and I wonder how to remove these without ruining the case even more.

You can wash the motherboard if there is too much dirt, as long as you give it the time to dry properly.


Cheers,
Oge
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I have used a very sharp surgical knife (non-sterile, available at druggists or pharmacies) to cut way plastic like that with success. Sanding may do (a lot of) damage to the surrounding texture or smooth surface.
When sanding: you can try to stick some tape around the area to prevent damage there, but be careful not to sand through the tape

If you sand a C64 the texture will never look right. The best you could hope for is to sand the whole thing so at least it would all match.

Whatever you do, don't use acetone or gasoline on Commodore plastics.. it will melt them instantly. WD-40 and/or alcohol seem fine for removing sticky stuff or labels.

Alcohol damages plastics when it comes to breadbin cases (the colour looks different where alcohol is applied). Isopropyl alcohol could be less effective in removing traces of ink or dirty, but it will not alter plastics.

Cheers,
Oge
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I seem to find all kinds of small furry, multi-legged critters in electronics.

This is a metal case 128D so sanding is done by hand.
The dent in the bezel (plastic) is not really easily fixable. I took an Exacto knife and carefully cut down the high spots and will just let it go at that. It's not too bad and I'm not trying for a 100% cosmetic restoration.
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I got a front plate which I cut into a while back to put a uIEC. One of my worst moments since I really don't like it there. I should of cut a whole in the back and placed it there. In any case, Since it is ruined. I am planning on patching it and repainting it black (with paint that bonds to plastic). The only problem is what type to filler to use so you can not notice it.
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Take it to a local Hobby Store that deals in plastic models. There are tons of products for this kind of thing.

Just take your time when cutting\sanding it down to match the contours of the face plate.
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And post some pictures!

Here are a few before pics:

This is the face. Note broken toggle switches:


This is the top:


Spidy in his hole. RIP:


Note the broken drive lever and wires for changing drive lever:


Very rusty cover:


Lots of filth and start of corrosion on case bottom:



Some sort of mold or corrosion. Nothing from a MB component:


Maybe spilled Pepsi®:



Now it's off to the Handyman Store to find some paint!
More pics as I progress.

Dan
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That is taking computer bugs a bit too literary
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Thanks for the pictures. I'm curious to see how it will turn out. It looks like with some effort you could make it look much nicer. But I don't think it will ever look "new" again, unfortunately.

It's coming along pretty good.
I have it up and running with just one bug to work out. Found out my skills of painting suck really, really, badly.

Will seek out a hand in that department.

The face cleaned up really nice, a lot better than I had hoped for.
As for looking "new", of course not, but it will look 100% better and be one most folks would like to use.

It will go up for sale at some point, a lot of folks looking for a good deal on a 128D and this one will be that.
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