Akai CS-707D

[d-ray657]

My find for the week was an Akai CS-707D cassette deck for five dollars. It was marked $5, but the sellers said everything was now half off. It belonged to another parent from my kid's school, so I felt strange taking it for $2.50. It included two interconnects that were worth at least $20 each. I paid five just so I wouldn't be embarrassed next time I saw her.

It looks like it is going to need a belt. I tried to play a tape and it played for about a minute and shut off. When I tried to run a head cleaner, it ate the cleaning strip. Both spindles (correct term?) work with no tape, but the take-up side stops when a tape is on it. I haven't opened it up yet. Is there anything I should look for besides a missing or loose belt? Thanks for any advice.

Regards,

D-Ray

[Eagle1]

Check this site out for belts for your Akai. http://www.vintage-electronics.cc/akaikits.html
I bought a set for my GXC-709D which consisted of 3 belts and carefully replaced with a friends help. Two pairs of eyes are better than one to remember. It acted as yours. One belt went to the capstan via motor and drive (flywheel) pulley, one went through a series of 3 pullies for forward and reverse and the other to the tape counter. It ran like brand new for several hours then would sieze up. After cooling down would run just fine. Took it back apart and added a bit of oil to the motor bearing, flywheel bearing and let it sit over night. Removed any excess oil afterward and then applied some phono lube (lithium) to the capstan end shaft where the thrust adjusment screw contacts and remounted the bracket. Problem solved! Your's maybe the same cure for under $20 and some time. Does your tape counter work without a tape in it in either FW, RW or play? Cassette decks rely on this to determine if it has reached the end of the tape. Without this the deck will shut off. That would point to a bad or missing belt. I would still replace all of the belts and clean all of the pulleys of old grease and oil and relube paying particular attention to the area of the flywheel bearing and thrust adjustment screw. As for the head cleaner tape snapping it was probably done for anyway. I had the same results with a Scotch tape that separated between the leader and tape. It was almost 30 yrs. old but I managed to repair and save it. BTW nice deck looks very similar to my 709D! Hope I could help for starts.

[Fred Longworth]

In their infinite wisdom, Akai often lubricated the capstan bushings in their cassette decks with grease. In 37 years of servicing audio, I have seldom encountered anything quite so stupid. In 100% of the machines so lubed, this led to speed and torque problems down the line.

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Make sure that the flat belts from Vintage Electronics are no thicker than .023". Thicker belts will induce a parasitic mechanical oscillation, and will enormously degrade the wow-and-flutter figure.

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Fred