I went to your Electric Mistress info site, and its very good. However, info there seemed to be a bit off mark on mine..
I bought my Deluxe Electric Mistress I thought, around 1983, but then i thought again.. I am pretty sure I bought it in October or early November of 1984. I recall it seemed to have been kept in the music store’s glass counter shelf for a long time, I thought it might have been there a few years.. he had two of them in there.
Photos i have seen of the insides of the DEM’s led me to think it was probably from 1979 or 1980.
So today I found Ralph’ Electro Harmonix site and used the links there for dating mine by the pots. The only pot that you can easily read the back of is the one for Color, on top.

it reads: R1378405 and PO130

according to the code info, it seems, that would be 137… ’84 is the year, and 05 is the week. 5th week of 84 would be early February. I figured, OK, well I bought it in Fall of 1984, so that would have been earlier the same year.
But when I looked through the other section How to Date the Mistress models, it said, based on various things, that its from 1979, a model Version 2.
But it says, after 1980 it would have a green and black face on it, but mine looks like the older ones, with the black paint over the metal box.
I noticed sometimes the wires are different color inside; figured thats from different time periods probably as well. I think my stomp switch originally had thin blue wires to the board..
Anothe thing i noticed, is, the photos of the pots usually just start out with the 137 number.. but mine has an R137 to start it off.
Kind of made me wonder if mine was a resissue of the earlier design, though none of the box nor paperwork inside indicated it was anything like that. I also wonderied if maybe that meant it was remanufactured, like a defect returned because it needed a new pot? but then they fixed it with a new pot and packaged it and sold it as a new DEM, complete with the regular warranty cards etc. I do not know if that was something they might have done or not. curious as to why it has the old 1970 style design and looks but seems to have a 1984 pot. (?)

Aside from that, the reason I opened the box in the first place years ago, was the stompo switch started acting fickle. opened it up and could see that the design is simple, it had a rod thing that when pushed it rolls to the other position, and touches two other connectors for the wires. and vice versa, anytme you stomp on the switch. only this one was worn out.. & seemed to have the parts kind of loose inside, so it wouldnt make a clean connection.

i could have just kept it in one position somehow, to it was always on, but i’d rather have a new switch, so I removed it to see if i could find one just like it at a electronics store. (Like radioshack, but they didnt have it) no luck anywhere..of course this was pre-internet too. so i just put it in its box and kept it there for a long time. bought other flangers and newer digital multi-effects but still bummed i have this thing sitting in a box. it soundded different than anything else i’ve had or tried out.

noticed another problem is i dont known where two of the wires go..from the switch to the board. I figured it would be easy to find one to look at, or a photo pf the insides of one like mine, and see where they go. but the photos I have been finding dont show that part very well. not good enough to use as a guide.

some have tape over the wires, or they twisted the wires around each other,and they are all the same color, so that doesnt help, and i dont want to risk putt it together wrong, because it was in perfect shape otherwise, and not used for long. otherwise, both the box and the effect and the paperwork is in great condition.

also id need to buy some new wire for that and want it to match. it didnt have a single strand of wire in the center, it was very thin wires together, if memory serves. they werent copper, but silvery colored i think.

so, anyone know where i might get this thing fixed? or have a good picture of the backside of the board, a diagram or photo that shws really clearly where each wire goes for the stomper?
and. does anyone know where i can find a stomp switch just like it? (if its possible)
If i have to use some other type of stomp switch design, i’d need to know how to use that one in the same way the opriginal was.

thanks, if anyone can help..

I don’t see anything wrong with that for cleaning; but would highly recommend that you not use any cleansers that are abrasive, are alcohol or amonia or oil-based, as they would be very likely to affect the paint.
Dawn is a mild cleanser and water-baed but also great at getting dirt and grease off of things, but i would not think anything with amounts of liquid, even water is a great idea if it might leak into anything. so spraying is out. i use a Q-tip, and a small soft cloth to clean my pedals, and a little mild soap (like dawn) works ok. the casings can rust, so they have some iron content, so avoid moisture in general. Turtle wax isnt a terrible idea to protect it, but be careful of other types of auto polishes or car “waxes”, and they often have small abrasives, or are made of silicon and or oil-based. neither is a good idea for electronics or these kind of paints.
For and old tired looking DEM pedal I used a little bit of Flitz metal polish also is a great rust remover (its for metals, fiberglass, plastics) and it worked out very nicely. At first i was just trying to remove some small rust spots on the top by the lettering, but i noticed it cleaned the metal and the rust, so figured i’d do the rest of the metalic part, but noticed it didnt seem to affect the inked lettering, so tried a little corner of the main paint art on top, and it didnt damage it, but it did give a bit of a more even luter to the whole top. Flitz removes rust and dist, but also polishes and protects too, so waxing afterwards isnt really needed. it doesnt feel oily or waxy or anything after either. I have also used it to clean rusted or corroded mechanical type electrical connections too.. (like guitar jacks, amp jacks.) For those i usually clean it iwth the Flitz so its silvery metal again.. then use some rubbing alcohol on a q-tip to make sure there is nothing left on the jack, then its just clean metal. an electrician once told me you should clean the jacks and connectors on your amp and guitar now and then to keep a good clean connection..youd be surprised how much grease and dusty dirt you can get on those parts over time. later on i just added the metal cleaner to the practice.