1970 Ampeg
Gemini-22 Restoration Project
Straight from the Landfill
A while back I had a customer drop by looking for some parts. He mentioned that he had an old Ampeg that needed to be fixed, but it was in sorry shape. The customer explained that he was a loader driver at the local dump. One day he noticed this old Ampeg in the big pile of trash. He took it home where it sat in a closet for a couple of years. Well, a couple of weeks later he brought her over. Once I saw her, I told him it could be extremely cost-prohibitive to repair. There was no way to know what was wrong with this amp without a bunch of troubleshooting and servicing first. These amps normally sell for around $400 - $600 around here.
Ouch . . . not looking good
After hearing the grim news, he decided to take it back to the dump, unless I wanted it . . . I told him I would take it and possibly restore it if I ever got the time. Well, upon further inspection, I knew that this was going to be a huge project and it would have to wait a while. The amp was missing the metal chassis mounts, top metal shielding panel, a speaker, some tubes and there was a lot of questionable caps, parts etc on the inside covered with grime. Only time would tell if the transformers were good.
The tolex was all there, but much of it needed to be reglued. One very positive item that was there was the original footswitch, although it had been hacked into and "extended" with some questionable wire.
Inside chassis first look
Well, this amp sat for well over a year here before it finally slowed down in October 2009 enough to start working on her. As I got the chassis out, I realized that maybe, just maybe it wasn't quite as bad as initially thought. Although there was still going to be a huge amount of work involved.
Back to recovery . . .
Using a toothbrush and a lot of elbow grease, I started working the grime off the board and began the initial process of examining in detail what would need to be replaced. Uncovering the grime revealed no burned wiring or resistors . . . that's always good!
Failed cap.
As seen in the picture above, there was a failed (and I mean FAILED) coupling cap next to the power tubes. I'm guessing this, bad tube and an overrated fuse contributed to the downfall.
Ampeg GV-22 Restoration Page 2
Back to Homepage
DISCLAIMER: This website is not affiliated with FMIC, Ampeg or Marshall.