I recently acquired a 1970s
Morley MVO Wah Volume on eBay. It was listed as not working/for parts, so I got
a good deal on it. Here is a picture of the pedal as it was when I bought it:
And here is a picture of the
pedal as it was when I sold it:
There are three issues a
non-working pedal can have, and the Morley WVO had two:
- Mechanical: the treadle was loose and laid all
the way forward. It moved freely like a treadle should, but flopped forward as
soon as I took my foot off it. Also, the tolex flap inside the pedal that
blocks the light came unstuck from the tape that holds it in place (see a brief description of how this works in my previous post at http://momentfx.blogspot.com/2014/03/simple-fix-for-1976-morley-pro-flanger.html).
- Cosmetic (which is really only an issue if the
plan is to resell the pedal, which I did): The chrome was decidedly dull and
the treadle pad was dirty.
- (The third issue is electrical, and this pedal
had absolutely no problems in that respect.)
The first mechanical fix was the
pedal, which was easy. I used a 5/16” wrench for the bolt and a 3/8” wrench for
the nut and gave each a few slow turns. A plastic bushing maintains the
friction required to hold the pedal in position. If you were to overtighten and
crack the bushing, they are not specialty parts, so you could get one from any
hardware store. Nonetheless, you should only tighten a little at a time and
check for feel after a couple of slow turns.
The other mechanical fix was a
little trickier, and I didn’t notice it until after making arrangements for a
potential buyer to come look at it. The flap that blocks the light is made of
tolex (fake leather made of vinyl and fabric), which had become stiff over the
last thirty-some years. So rocking the treadle back and forth must have worked
it loose from the tape that was holding it in place.
Because of the age of the pedal,
I did not want to replace anything, even a piece of tape. So I took a length of
double-sided tape and placed it along the edge of the tolex. I put it in place
and pressed the original tape down on the tolex and it held. I was thus able to
keep all of the original components of the pedal and the fix is invisible. I
know it’s only a piece of tape, but I wasn’t sure at the time if the buyer was
an avid collector or just someone who wanted the pedal for nostalgic reasons.
The cosmetic fix did not require
any troubleshooting, but it did require some work. I used window cleaner for
the chrome and a damp cloth over a screwdriver tip to clean every ridge in the
treadle pad. After about a half hour, the pedal looked almost like new. Well,
not new, but an old pedal that has been well taken care of.
I was able to resell this pedal on
craigslist very quickly for a tidy profit. I probably could have gotten a bit
more on eBay, but not having to pay fees or pack and ship the pedal was worth
it. A bird in hand . . .
A few takeaways from this one:
- Take the time to clean whatever your selling.
- If the item only requires a few turns of a
wrench to get it in working order, it’s worth the effort (and possibly the
price of a wrench).
- When selling a pedal, always give it a quick
test before the seller comes. If I hadn’t, it would have been pretty awkward.
He did not want to test it, so he would have gotten home, found out it didn’t
work, and I would have looked foolish, if not dishonest.
For more Morley maintenance and repair tips, as well as a brief history of Tel-Ray/Morley, check out this site: http://www.wingspreadrecords.com/morley_maintenance.html. Warning: All text on that site is centered and occasionally red on a gray background. I had a bit of a headache by the time I was done reading it. However, I love the guy’s passion. People like that make the Internet a better place.
