Changing pedal & KL pulls on a Zum

Pete Grant · Post by **Pete Grant** » 22 Oct 2004 5:58 am

I see there's a U12 Zum for sale here on the SGF. How easy is it to change the pedal and knee lever pulls to make it an extended E9? Will it take minutes, hours, days, weeks, or what?

And how easy is it to get parts to add knee levers?

Bengt Erlandsen · Post by **Bengt Erlandsen** » 22 Oct 2004 6:28 am

Easy

I removed/reinstalled all pull rods (total of 29 pullrods) from my ZumS12 to change it to extE9. Took less than a half day with all adjustment/syncronizing pulls, getting the right amount of pedal/knee-lever travel.

Having a good plan about how the copedent should look like and a makin a chart of how things was installed originally made the work real simple.

Only extra tool needed was a ballpoint hex-wrench.

Changing 1 pullrod from one place to another would only take minutes. As easy as it gets

Bengt Erlandsen[This message was edited by Bengt Erlandsen on 22 October 2004 at 07:28 AM.]

Pete Grant · Post by **Pete Grant** » 22 Oct 2004 6:44 am

Thanks, Bengt. That's encouraging.

Pete Grant · Post by **Pete Grant** » 22 Oct 2004 7:05 am

Anyone know about parts availability?

CrowBear Schmitt · Post by **CrowBear Schmitt** » 22 Oct 2004 7:45 am

Pete, i found changing things around on my Zum D10 was pretty easy
allen wrenchs,& tuner wrench was all i needed
i made sure i understood what made it tick before i started takin' things out
do as Bengt suggests: "Having a good plan about how the copedent should look like and makin a chart of how things was installed originally made the work real simple."
Parts can be gotten from Bruce Zumsteg
Zumsteel inc - 816-380 4568
25625 S Brush College Rd
Harrisonville - Missouri 64701
that U12 is a nice one

[This message was edited by CrowBear Schmitt on 22 October 2004 at 08:46 AM.]

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 22 Oct 2004 7:54 am

Peter, I must work a little slower than Bengt. I would imagine it would take me more than a day to completely re-rod and adjust a Zum uni. But to convert a uni to an extended E9 could probably be done in a few hours. You will mostly be removing the B6 pulls. Also, many unis do not have the E9 pulls on the lower couple of strings, and for Ext. E9 you probably will want to add them (B pedal and F lever pulls an octave lower).

The main nuisance with the older Zums is that you have to remove the cross-rod to move the bell cranks around. The new pull-rod/bell crank assemblies Bruce sells have bellcranks that can be removed without removing the cross-rod, and are much more convenient. But Bengt might have the right idea. If you remove all the pull rods, then you can just slide the existing bell cranks where you want them without removing the cross-rods. The extra bell cranks for the B6 pulls can just be slid to either side out of the way, and may not need to be removed entirely.

You can easily get all the parts you need simply by calling Bruce Zumsteg (do a search on Zum and you will find some posts with his phone number). Putting a vertical knee lever on would not be very difficult. You have to think carefully about where to attach the lever, and which cross-rod to work with it. Bruce will help you think through that.[This message was edited by David Doggett on 22 October 2004 at 09:00 AM.]

Bengt Erlandsen · Post by **Bengt Erlandsen** » 22 Oct 2004 8:45 am

Plan could be like this.
1: count all raises & lower on all pedals/levers and compare with new copedent to see if you need additional parts.

2 Write down oringinal copedent and location where pullrods are attached to bellcrank and raise/lower mechanism for reference.

3: Remove all pullrods, clean if necessary.

4: install pull rods for 1 lever/pedal at a time, starting with raises first and starting on the cross-shaft closest to the raise mechanism. Make sure the pullrods run in a straight line from the changer to the cross-shaft.
NOTE IMPORTANT if additional raises are to be done on the same string make sure you can install them below the first pullrod installed. Below = closer to the lowering pullrods.

5: Adjust the pulls to make sure they are syncronized and change to the correct note before proceeding to the next cross-shaft.
Last cross-shaft is the one closest to where the tuners are.

6: After doing all the raises, start again with the cross-shaft furthest to the right and install lowering pullrods performing step 4 & 5 again until all lowering pulrods are installed.

7: Turn the guitar over and sit in to check if the angle of the knee levers feel comfortable or need to be adjusted.

8: Make music

[This message was edited by Bengt Erlandsen on 22 October 2004 at 09:49 AM.]

CrowBear Schmitt · Post by **CrowBear Schmitt** » 22 Oct 2004 9:19 am

David is right about the older model bellcranks
the new ones are much easier to take off and reinstall
yes, they can replace the older models bellcranks
i have the older models & yes they're more of a hassle to remove & install elsewhere.
what year is that U12 ?
[This message was edited by CrowBear Schmitt on 22 October 2004 at 10:22 AM.]

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 22 Oct 2004 9:47 am

See, now right there is the difference between Bengt's approach and mine. Is he counting all the time needed to do all that planning? Noooo. What's the fun in that? The real fun with my way is scraping your knuckles and gettin' muscle spasms in your back while bending over the dang thing takin' it all apart for the fourth time because you did it all wrong.

Larry Chung · Post by **Larry Chung** » 22 Oct 2004 10:04 am

Hi Pete!!!! Just wanted to say:
"Hi Pete!!!!"

(:

Pete Grant · Post by **Pete Grant** » 22 Oct 2004 10:16 am

Hi Larry!

Al Marcus · Post by **Al Marcus** » 22 Oct 2004 11:05 am

CrowBear and Bengt-Thanks for Your info on the Zum setup which can be useful info for many other steels too.

Do you know what year model Zumsteel Changed to removable bell cranks without needing to take out the Crossrods?....al

------------------
My Website..... www.cmedic.net/~almarcus/

[This message was edited by Al Marcus on 22 October 2004 at 12:07 PM.]

Bengt Erlandsen · Post by **Bengt Erlandsen** » 22 Oct 2004 12:12 pm

David. You are sooo right. The time stated was of course from the moment the guitar was upside down and the other planning was already done. Still we are talking about hours and not days.

Bengt

CrowBear Schmitt · Post by **CrowBear Schmitt** » 22 Oct 2004 12:31 pm

Good question Al - i would like to know the answer as well
my Zum D10 9/8 is from 1982 and runs fine
when i got it,it was set up Day on E9 (i prefer Emmons) and C6 required a few changes
i studied the phenomena and took notes on Tuesday
got under way on Wednesday 11:00 and had it finished by 18:00
no scraped knuckles, some back pains, but total satisfaction when i got it tweeked & runnin'

CrowBear Schmitt · Post by **CrowBear Schmitt** » 22 Oct 2004 12:44 pm

there was a thread back in 2001 about Bob Brocius makin' or improvin' a Zum manual
anybody know bout this ?

Dag Wolf · Post by **Dag Wolf** » 24 Oct 2004 3:50 pm

I think Zum changed the bell cranks and rods in 1997.

Dag

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 25 Oct 2004 12:16 am

Changing a Zum around is a lot easier than a Sho-Bud,
and parts are not an issue.