How do you repair Hector? ( Mother Goose )

[FilthyAnimal]

Hi all! I noticed that there doesn't seem to be any guides as to how to troubleshoot repairs for Mother Goose's Hector out there. Does anyone have some sources I might have missed? I know youtube can be particularly unhelpful with searches sometimes, so I'm not ruling out that it's just something buried in there.

I have two Hectors, one works perfectly. The other does not respond at all, aside from plugging him into Mother Goose causes her audio track to blip out when Hector should be speaking. Hector himself does nothing. I've tried swapping out batteries/cords with no luck. I still like him as he is (so cute!) even if he doesn't work, so I'm admittedly hesitant to try to open him. I wouldn't even know where to begin cutting his seams to look inside him, so I'm at a total loss.

[d.ruxpin]

So sorry that nobody has responded...welcome to the forum!
I personally don't know anything about Hector's insides, only Teddy's. Maybe...the audio jack is damaged? I would think it's the audio jack considering the fact that he doesn't seem to respond to anything. I highly doubt he would just freeze up, stop playing, and stop working altogether.

[late2theparty]

Hello - I've done a repair on a Hector, but it has been a while so I am working off memory. Of course you need to locate and open up his seam to get at the internal mechanism. The animation works with a single servo of the same type as used in all the WoW toys but Baby Teddy, which is a very different mechanism. The trick to getting him apart is removal of the beak. I honestly cannot remember the procedure for doing this so you will have to work carefully to figure it out if you try a repair. The Servo works the mouth directly, while the eyes operate with a sort of lever mechanism that is similar to Playskool Teddies.
When you say that the audio cuts out when he should be speaking, that says to me that there is an issue with his socket, and the contacts may be out of alignment. Check that out if you undertake this job.

[corgiluver]

I've never worked on a Hector either, but I have removed the beak of a mother goose. Her beak is attached with a small metal "dowel" through it. I just took a very small Phillips head screwdriver and pushed it in one end until the dowel started to come out the other end of the beak. Then used needle nose pilers to pull it the rest of the way out. Again, no idea if this is how Hector is assembled, just thought I'd share.

[LooneyBirdCEC]

Well I don't know much about Hector, but I think you should open him up and check for any issues. You should consider messing with the servos before opening him up. Sometimes you can get him to come alive by manually moving his mouth and eyes to the song. Best of luck and cheers!

[FilthyAnimal]

May 6, 2017 12:28:48 GMT -7 d.ruxpin said:

So sorry that nobody has responded...welcome to the forum!
I personally don't know anything about Hector's insides, only Teddy's. Maybe...the audio jack is damaged? I would think it's the audio jack considering the fact that he doesn't seem to respond to anything. I highly doubt he would just freeze up, stop playing, and stop working altogether.

I don't know why I didn't think of the audio jack being the source of the issue! I will try to clean it sometime and see if anything changes. I think I also may have confused people: Hector does not have audio or movement of any kind, and the only indicator that he's connected is Mother Goose's audio cutting out when he should be talking.

Also thanks for the welcome! I'm still getting used to the speed at which conversation goes here. It's been a long time since I've used a forum, but I'm happy there's a place to talk about these toys with other fans! Thanks everyone for the responses! Hopefully some more folks will chime in.

[late2theparty]

I am assuming that your working Hector is plugged into the same Mother Goose and with the same cord as you are using to try to get the non-working Hector to life. It sounds to me that you could have two separate issues with the non-working Hector. The audio issue says to me that Mother Goose is sending an audio signal to Hector, but that it is not moving through the jack and board into the speaker. I've seen that problem with Teddy and Grubby and Mickey and Goofy as well, and it is usually caused by a bad contact in the jacks. So cleaning is a good first step. If that does no do it, you might had to adjust the internal contacts in the jack to assure good contact with the plug.
No animatronics could also trace to a bad contact in the jack, but seems more likely to be the usual freeze up of the servo. Try the massage method using the beak to see whether you can get the servo freed-up. Be gentle though as you have to regard the fact that there are also plastic lever inside the mechanism that operate Hector's eye movement.
Wish I could remember the exact process to open him up as that would make things much easier if you have to get inside of his head. I do recall that the way to open him is sort of a reverse from working with the other WoW toys due to the way his base is constructed with it being glued on in some manner - and what I mean by that is opening the deem from the head down and not the bottom up as is the usual process. This way you pull the fur down from the head to get him open without having to mess with the glued base. I also recall that removing the beak does not involve much more than working the larger upper part off in order to open his inner head parts to get at the servo and levers in there. I also seem to recall that getting the eye lever back in place was a but tricky and that there may have been a spring in that mechanism that has to be placed in proper position.