BW speaker maintenance

[Jerry Overstreet]

I know many of you are aware of this, but some may not be.
See the dark object through the screen, that's the foam plug that has fallen out of the screen. Eventually the foam will deteriorate to a sticky consistency, get down in the coil gap and cause noise and rubbing.

It's a good idea to periodically take a peek in the back of your amp/cab. Probably need a flashlight. If you can see the dust cover, the foam plug has either fallen out or has been removed. Move the amp around and you might see the plug floating around in there.

It's a pretty simple operation to clean up if you catch it soon enough.

Remove the magnet....pull out the remaining foam in the magnet...inspect and clean the magnet gap and the voice coil. Be careful with the coil. You can use sticky tape and a business card to clean the magnet gap. Maybe a little naphtha or alcohol will be needed.

I like to glue a light piece of tight knit fabric over the screen to keep out dust and debris. I guess you could replace it with more foam, but the same condition may re-occur down the road.

Carefully re-align and install the magnet and you're good to go for many more years.

I found these while setting up and examining some speakers to sell. This one is a Super Structure era speaker so it has a few years on it.

If yours have been around a while, good idea to check 'em.

It came out in one piece, but this is what happened soon as I touched it, disintegrated and turned into a gummy mess while trying to pick it up.

[Jerry Overstreet]

...more pics from recent clean up. Speaker was buzzing, I figured this was the problem and so it was. Here's a few more shots of the disintegrated foam, the melted foam inside the voice coil former with a before and after shot post clean up w/ordinary rubbing alcohol.

Use masking tape on business or credit card to clean coil gap.




With this maintenance, this Peavey Black Widow speaker is good to go for many years.

Of course it you have a burned out voice coil, this won't help.

[Dennis Detweiler]

I've repaired a few of these. Safest way I've found to reset the magnet, buy some long bolts with the same threads as the 3 mounting bolts and cut off the hex heads. Screw them into the basket first and make sure you don't have too much thread sticking through the other side and into the cone or cut enough thread off so the bolt bottoms out before it protrudes through. Then lower the magnet onto the basket using the 3 long bolts as a guide. Once in place, remove the long bolts and replace with the factory screws.
Acetone (fingernail polish remover) will cut through the melted foam rubber a little quicker.

[Willie Sims]

I find replacing the magnet easy by laying it on a flat surface ,and guiding the voice coil into the magnet,turn over and replace the bolts.

[Jerry Overstreet]

Whatever method works for you. Just take care whatever method you use.

I've been following these instructions that Peavey included with RB's. They work fine for me. When you slant the magnet, you can feel the rim of the speaker basket to align it, then gently lower it. No problem.

[Lee Baucum]

Many years ago I started having issues with my first generation Nashville 400. I just couldn't dial in the sound I was used to hearing. Eventually it started having a bit of a fuzzy sound. I figured it was time for it to go to the shop for repair. Just for grins, I ran a speaker cable over to the speaker in my Evans amp. Everything sounded great again, so I knew it wasn't the amp.

Someone posted on here about the importance of cleaning out the deteriorating foam from the innards (technical term) of the speaker on these BWs. I followed the steps Jerry posted and all was well again.

[Murray McDowall]

I did the same, or more correctly my son, cleaned out my 2 BW in my Session 500 and my 115BW Bass Bin a few years ago.
Quite an easy job if you're careful and got steady hands!

Murray.

[Willie Sims]

JUST ONE SMALL SLIP,HOLDING THAT HEAVY MAGNET CAN RUIN THE VOICE COIL.I PREFER NOT TO PRESS MY LUCK.

[Garry Simpson]

Thanks Jerry for posting this. My Nashville 400 recently started buzzing. I followed your procedure and I'm back in business now.

[Jerry Overstreet]

You're welcome Garry. Glad you found the info helpful. It's been posted here several times, but it may be hard for someone to find when they need it, so it's worth a bump now and then.

The procedure is compliments of Mike Brown and the folks at the Peavey corporation. That's how I learned about it.

I'm just parroting what they said and confirming that it has worked for me dozens of times. It has saved many of us from pitching baskets and speakers that we didn't realize could be serviced beforehand.

Happy pickin'!

[Don Couchie]

I did the same thing Jerry suggested and sure enough it worked like a charm. My Session 500 is running like it should.

Don.