Anyone with older Mark IV's send em to Mesa

  • Thread starter Thread starter anomaly
  • Start date Start date
blackba said:
I bet Mesa removes the board and also checks all the LDRs when they service. Removing the board would take a good long time.
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just doing the electrolytics in both the satellite and the IV took maybe 2 hrs with several interuptions from my children. the $40 electric desoldering pump i got on amazon was the real hero. that really sped things up. just gotta hot glue the caps in place. this amp really isn't THAT hard to work on as long as you don't have to remove that main board.
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JimAnsell said:
just doing the electrolytics in both the satellite and the IV took maybe 2 hrs with several interuptions from my children. the $40 electric desoldering pump i got on amazon was the real hero. that really sped things up. just gotta hot glue the caps in place. this amp really isn't THAT hard to work on as long as you don't have to remove that main board.
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Awesome job!!!

Don't forget to clean all of the jacks and pots.
 
anomaly said:
Just got my very early Mark IVb back from getting fixed up and re-capped by Mike B and they said those 10,000uf 16volt sprague caps had leaked all over the board and caused a ton of damage, so it's not just the Mark IVa's it's also the early IVb's that have this common problem cause they share a lot of the same components as IVa's. They took 7 and a half hours of work getting the amp done and the price was enormous, but I justified it giving the current cost of Mark IV's and the fact that this amp has killed my amp GAS for the last 5 years. It sounds amazing, and even better now that it's re-capped and had a few upgrades.

Get it done before you end up with a rediculous repair bill.
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Just researching this, boogie will no longer clean the PC board so I might have a mark IV paper weight
 
locoed said:
Just researching this, boogie will no longer clean the PC board so I might have a mark IV paper weight
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That sucks, I'm really glad I got mine done when I did. It's just a really extensive job apparently. When those caps leak, they short out other shit, plus they also have to take the board out and clean it properly which takes time. I think Mike B is the only one there who is able to do this fix, correct me if I'm wrong.
 
anomaly said:
That sucks, I'm really glad I got mine done when I did. It's just a really extensive job apparently. When those caps leak, they short out other shit, plus they also have to take the board out and clean it properly which takes time. I think Mike B is the only one there who is able to do this fix, correct me if I'm wrong.
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Mine leaked all over the board and did exactly that.. shorted out other shit. Thankfully Mike B was able to trace everything by hand and fix good as new. AFAIK he is/was the only one doing repairs like that.
 
Reading through the comments I'm kinda surprised there have been so many issues with other users Mark IV's.

My Mark IV Rev. A was serviced by Mike B. ~6 months ago. I bought it from the original owner, who never serviced it.

Mike offered to replace the Main Hi Voltage Caps, but said its wasn't necessary. He hasn't seen any issues with those caps from that vintage.

He did however replace the smaller caps because they didn't cost much money and it was more so preventative but not necessary.

Another person in the service center had mentioned they tend to see more Rev. B's with service related issues than Rev. A's.
 
phil b said:
Mine leaked all over the board and did exactly that.. shorted out other shit. Thankfully Mike B was able to trace everything by hand and fix good as new. AFAIK he is/was the only one doing repairs like that.
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Yeah Mike B. is the only one working on Vintage stuff.

He's also particular to what he'll work on.

Last we corresponded it was only Mark Series, no Rectifiers.
 
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JimAnsell said:
just doing the electrolytics in both the satellite and the IV took maybe 2 hrs with several interuptions from my children. the $40 electric desoldering pump i got on amazon was the real hero. that really sped things up. just gotta hot glue the caps in place. this amp really isn't THAT hard to work on as long as you don't have to remove that main board.
View attachment 106855
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@JimAnsell do you have the link to the $40 desoldering pump you bought from Amazon?

That sounds incredibly reasonable and would make for a nice upgrade from a solder sucker.
 
FWIW i looked through all my pics of the 4 or 5 early mark IVa's i had from sn 009xx -> 2200 that all have the 820uf caps, NOT 10,000uf.
 
JimAnsell said:
FWIW i looked through all my pics of the 4 or 5 early mark IVa's i had from sn 009xx -> 2200 that all have the 820uf caps, NOT 10,000uf.
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I think it's mainly earlier mid 90's IVb's that have those 10,000uf caps?? i could be wrong though.
 
Techdeth said:
Is that you selling the one for parts on eBay ?
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that one looks like someone worked on it before. some of the orange caps are replaced with 630v's. Doesn't look tragic from the photos, but you can't see the bottom of the board. i bet someone with a lot of time and the right equipment could fix that thing. it'll be interesting to see what that sells for. the cabinet and transformers will take it to 5 or 600.
 
anomaly said:
That sucks, I'm really glad I got mine done when I did. It's just a really extensive job apparently. When those caps leak, they short out other shit, plus they also have to take the board out and clean it properly which takes time. I think Mike B is the only one there who is able to do this fix, correct me if I'm wrong.
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You got lucky, thankfully tho.
 
Forgive me I need to revive this thread because I need to recap my Mark IVb (early one, born in 1993), which is now 30 years old and have those dreaded brown 10000uf radial caps and it's up for recapping anyway. Upon careful inspection on top of the PCB with flashlight I saw no oil / electrolyte leak yet, hopefully everything is still OK underneath. I've built 3 amps so I have some experience, but all my builds have been turret board, so this is the first time I'll work on PCB.

Some questions I hope people who have done this can help:
- I see glue / silicone on those cap holding them together with other components. How can I take the glue / silicone off safely?
- For filter caps I'll go with F&Ts. What about the radial caps, what brands people tend to go with?
- Where to get the components?

Thanks!
 
i used a hairdryer to soften the silicone up enough to gently work it off with a small flat head screw driver, or needle nose pliers. works like a charm. As for the parts, i just ordered them from mesa boogies website. I'm not sure brand is super important with those radials. You're not going to notice a difference, as long as they're not defective.
 
I have an IVa and finally just checked it out. Luckily no bad caps on mine, I have the 8200uf 16v caps.
 

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