SHARP GF A2 an amazing old boombox (fully rebuild by Kiriakos)

[Kiriakos GR]

About seven months back I was lucky to notice this SHARP GF A2 next to the trash container.
It looked truly dirty and very misused regarding the system which was holding the speakers mounted on their sides.

Even so I made the decision to stop and rescue it, so to investigate if it worth having a second chance.
By powering it up it started operating with small issues in the radio (selection band switch).
The tape door lock-hook was broken, and tape head looked warn off.

But the magic to it was the over all sound fidelity which is still amazing and by far TOP class  compared to many other similar sized boomboxes of it age. 

At that time I did just a master cleaning so to restore back mostly the aesthetics, and attach back the speakers on it sides.

By using it as plain radio for some months all the switches restored their functionality at 100%,  but suddenly the LED sound level bar started to not responding according the input signal.

Therefore I open it up so to actually repair the PCB, but the problem sorted up by refreshing some solder joins.
I did have as old (new stock) a tape head which found compatible.

After this step I got a hard plastic  piece and started working with it so to form it as hook so to restore back the cassette door.
This took me many hours and it looked as surgery, finally everything restored back and high quality glue of two elements manage to bond the new hook at the existing remaining plastic part which was still mounted on the cassette mechanism.
A new rubber band got in place.

And my master piece was almost ready, but there was still a problem with the super long recording switch (multi contacts), one quick bath with alcohol restored back the contact as tape player, but the switch was warn off too. 
I disconnected the hard wire which moves this switch to a recoding position and I did stabilized so to make good contact just in play condition.
By handling its and every problem with extreme patience, this boombox it did get a second life. 

If you discover a similar one ... just rescue it, it does worth the trouble.