commen problem in casset decks

[goraman]

I keep finding mint casset decks Pioneer,Marantz and even a Mc at the thrift they light up,FF and rewind but stall out on playback with a known to work tape inside,if you press both play and FF the meters will show music but play stalls out like a 30 year old Yugo.Seems to be common,what gives?

[jbrainey]

30 Year old rubber components

[Web Police]

Sounds like the drive belt or belts are stretched out and or slipping.

[goraman]

I wonder if new belts can still be found .

[BrocLuno]

Go to Studio Sound on the 'Net and get a universal flat or round belt kit as needed if they do not have your brand/model by number. Each universal kit has 10-12 of the most widely used belts in that style. The kits are like $12 IIRC.

[daddydlb]

My Pioneer CTF 700 does this too. I bought new belts but...you have unsolder things and it looks daunting. However what I noticed was that a drive wheel doesnt move far enough to firmly touch what its supposed to rotate. It appears its not belt related from what I see. Needs some adjustment. Will have to spend some more time investigating.

[stuwee]

My Pioneer CTF 700 does this too. I bought new belts but...you have unsolder things and it looks daunting. However what I noticed was that a drive wheel doesnt move far enough to firmly touch what its supposed to rotate. It appears its not belt related from what I see. Needs some adjustment. Will have to spend some more time investigating.

And keep asking questions on models,some can be fixed realitvely easily and some not. But cassettes are gonna come back just like LP's are get in now while prices are low, the tape manufactures will gear up again, if TDK gets enough e-mails they might bring back the mighty MA-XG's:thmbsp: my 2cts

Craig

[terra1]

Try cleaning and lubing. It could be belts or something more electronic but this is something you can try now.

I had a Onkyo TA-2090 I gave up on that stalled and stopped on Rew, FF, Play, Rec.

So I went after a Yamaha K-1020 on craigslist to hopefully replace it. I thought cheaper than taking Onkyo in for repair. The seller preparing for a demo sent me an email the night before that it wasn't working and I could have it free.

I said sure maybe cleaning contacts would help. The next day he said he tried spraying cleaner but still not working.

I took it home lubed the motor, sprayed fader lube on moving parts. Later told for small DC motors, teflon based drop of Tri-Flow or Zep is recommended. I found Tri-Flow in the automotive section of our local McClendon Hardware.

Tape struggled as if it wanted move more but still stalled. Caution if the left reel spins but not the take up reel then stop or tape will spool out and jam.

Scrubbed the rubber pinch rollers with alcohol. Changed qtips as they got black/brown dirty. (Used about 7 double tipped QTips.)
To get the transport to move up and spin the rollers, I removed the cassette well cover and pressed the sensor switches along the top to make it think a cassette was inserted. With my other hand, I scrubbed with qtip as the roller turned. A small flexible clip on booklight like those 2/$3 ones Walgreen's are handy.

When the qtips looked fairly clean at least grayish but not black, I tried the Rewind, FF, Play, Record. It worked in all modes. :banana:

With this success I did the same thing for my Onkyo TA-2090. It works too! :music:

I tried it on a TEAC V-900X -- did not work. :thumbsdn: :thumbsdn: But I got that off eBay, and it was damaged (DOA) during shipping because of flimsy packaging. Frankly, I'm not sure it even worked before, but that's another story.

I always knew cleaning is recommended, I just didn't know how aggressive you had to be with the pinch rollers. Previously I just swabbed them and that was it. But in this case my Onkyo had been stored for awhile and so was the Yamaha so petrification may have occurred. :)

CAUTION REGARDING RUBBER RENOVATOR: Can dissolve plastics! I bought Rubber Renue at Fry's and when I left a wet QTip with Rubber Renue on top of a Honeywell Envirocaire Air Cleaner, it left a little melted crater on the plastic case where the QTip rested! It was recommended in another forum, but because of this, I can't fully endorse it. Use a specially formulated pinch roller cleaner if you don't feel comfortable using alcohol because of fears of drying out rubber.

[Cadillac Kid]

Not sure what you mean by 'Stall'. However, I have fixed several cassette decks that stop during play. When inspected, they had a little loop in the cassette tape path. The fix is to spray the capstan motor with Deoxit. The theory being that there is a bad spot on the motor contact that is causing the problem.

This was very common with Nakamichi decks and I cured at least 15 over the years and I recently fixed my Sony TC-K81 with a shot of deoxit to the inside of the motor.