Grandstand Convertors Deltatron

What you say?

I arrived home from work last evening to find my nephew at home. He’d been looking around his mum and dad’s attic to find his old star wars toy collection he had from the 80s-90s. Whilst in the loft he found this old toy from 1985 by a company called Yonezawa being sold under the Grandstand branding, and it isn’t working. Here is where it passes over to uncle Dave.

There’s no real value to these toys as they were produced in massive quantities off the back of all the transformer type toys that were available at the time. There are some accessories missing from this one that are obtainable via the auction sites, he may well ask me to source these, but at the moment he just wants me to get it working to pass onto his boys. The video below shows just what it does….and that’s not a lot. But the one I have here is totally dead and needs reviving just like Frankenstein.

So here we go…

Assessment:

My overriding surprise is that this has been in a loft space for close to 30 yrs and does not have that expected damp mustiness that usually comes with such an item. I must say, my brother in laws loft space is an exception, it’s obviously free from excessive moisture, mind you it’s only about 40 yrs old so building standards had probably advanced somewhat from when ours was built about 90 yrs ago.

It’s in a good condition and all its parts are there minus a few little additions that originally came with the toy. But as I have stated earlier these parts can be obtained on line if required.

Right, let’s have a look at what is or isn’t happening here…

Repair:

When batteries are installed and the remote control is operated, all that happens is that a light comes on in the toy. The motion that is required is non existent.

When examined closer you can see there is a lot of surface rust on the side of the motor where the contacts go into the unit.

The contacts were so rusty inside the motor unit that you’d get an intermittent running of the motor if you moved them. I’ve checked continuity and solder joints and they were fine. I’ve injected some contact cleaning spray into the motor and sat there manipulating the motor in both directions for about 5 minutes, this was sufficient to get the motor running freely once power was reapplied. The contacts were dirty and restricting the flow of power to the motor. I decided to use some IPA around the area to give it all a good clean and once again sprayed more contact cleaner through the motor.

Once I’d run the motor for a few minutes in both directions I then applied some silicone grease to the cogs and moving parts to allow a smoother operation. It’s worked. A nice simple fix.

Result:

It’s working and here’s a small video to prove it.

I’ve already handed it back and it’s a joy to see the smiles on my nephew and his dad’s face when they watched it working. Such a simple thing, bringing back treasured memories and laughs. Another old toy saved for another generation and best of all another item not going to a landfill.

Thanks for passing by, as always it is very much appreciated.