Why did I buy this?

I was expecting that with mine. I lucked out. Just a little rubbing alcohol to clean the surfaces and that's it. This unit does not seem like it was ever opened. Nothing looked tampered with.

Belt ordered from Daeinconline, thanks for the link. Will clean and lube while waiting for the belt.
 
Boy were those pinch roller arms seized up. Had to dig into the front of the machine to get to the arms. Put some oil on the shafts and and fought to get them loose. I think they used Loctite instead of lube. Eventually got them freed up enough to pull them off the shafts. Cleaned and lubed it all up. Just waiting for the new belt and hopefully I can remember how everything goes back together on the backside.
 
I know, I never have seen a series of decks with such hard grease. I've almost bent the beefy roller shafts putting so much pressure on to free them up. How are your pinch rollers themselves? They have to be clean, flat, soft and supple for the tape to track properly. Many on these decks get hard with time and need some denatured alcohol and Naptha scrubbing (or outright rubber replacement by Terry's Rollers). You'll be able to tell because the tape will skew off to one side when playing in one direction or the other. Also, after the rollers being frozen and now worked free, you may want to check the pause position adjustment and pinch roller stroke adjustment per sections 2.5 & 2.6 in the service manual.
 
I think the pinch rollers are going to need replacing. They feel stiff. I'll see how they feel after a good cleaning. Will probably just send them out for a rebuild after I make sure all is working on the deck.
 
Stiff might not be bad. Gooey is bad. Clean them up.

I think someone else mentioned to carefully mark their original positions, when removed. (Left front, left rear, right front, right rear), so they can go back exactly as before, and look for, retain, and reinstall the tiny washers that were installed. There is one on the back and front of each roller. A small drop of sewing machine oil goes each capstan shaft before reassembly.

You can use some fine sandpaper (400 grit), to expose fresh rubber-just be sparing with the paper-only need to remove just enough......

You don't want to alter the profile of the rollers. Wrap the paper around the roller, and use your fingers to spin the roller in the sandpaper loop. Another method is placing a sheet of the paper on a flat hard surface, and spinning the roller on the paper, always mindful to keep it aligned such that you don't create flat spots or any irregularities to the profile of the roller.

Nice deck-and like you did back in it's day, I lusted for machines like yours, which I was unable to afford then.
 
Got the belt Friday. Cleaned the pinch rollers, which felt fine after the cleaning. Lubed all the rolling bits. Installed the belt and reassembled the backend. Threw on a tape and it was dragging in FF/REW. Tried another tape and same thing. Looked at the path and gunk....SSS. Cleaned the path and tried the third tape that came with it (TDK SA). Success! Played the whole tape and it sounded good. Whoever recorded that tape did a great job, DBX NR and all.

Now the bad part. The brakes aren't working that great on FF/REW. When you FF/REW to the end of the tape, it spins too much while flapping the tape around. Have to figure that out.

I can toss the rest of the decks in the trash now.....:D

Now if I can just find the Ebay seller that was selling new anodized reels in multiple colors...
 
...The brakes aren't working that great on FF/REW. When you FF/REW to the end of the tape, it spins too much while flapping the tape around. Have to figure that out.

I think that’s pretty much normal, it’s very hard to stop the built up inertia of a 10.5” reel loaded with tape when it’s really moving. I’ve got a few X-10R’s, an X-10 and an X-1000 here and they all do that to a degree. If it’s a problem you can always hit fast wind in the opposite direction just before the tape runs out, that’ll use the reel motors to dynamically brake it. The 10.5” X series decks have dynamic braking built in to the control logic so when you press stop it will automatically use the reel motors in the opposite direction to slow down the reels before applying the brake, however it can’t see the end of the reel coming so when that happens it’s normal to get a little bit of wild flapping.

With older decks you were always supposed to hit fast wind in the opposite direction when coming out of the fast winding mode with 10.5” reels loaded, you’d never want to just go directly to stop out of FF or REW (very hard on the braking system). It’s nice that the 10.5” X series decks have this automatic feature but I still do it by hand, I guess old habits die hard. Hitting stop right out of FF / REW feels like throwing the car into park while it’s still moving, just can’t do it (with 7” reels it’s not an issue).
 
Well, it's strange. In stop mode, there is more resistance turning the spool reel CCW (fwd play) than CW (rew). It's like the felt on the brake strap has been smoothed out in one direction.

Does someone sell special felt for this purpose?
 
This vendor might be one to check out when they reopen their website for business in September. They also offer reels through eBay but you may be able to purchase them for less directly from the vendor.

http://www.righteousreels.com/

I've seen their reels. Some cool designs. The ones I'm looking for were from a seller in NY. Decent prices for 2 10.5" reels.
 
Well, it's strange. In stop mode, there is more resistance turning the spool reel CCW (fwd play) than CW (rew). It's like the felt on the brake strap has been smoothed out in one direction.

Does someone sell special felt for this purpose?

Actually that's normal behavior for brakes. They tend to slip in one direction and grab in the other. That's why you can back your car out of the driveway with the parking brake on but as soon as you try to go forward it stops dead in its tracks. When you rotate the other reel table it should drag and slip in the opposite direction from the one you are turning now.
 
Here's the finished deck sitting on it's freshly refurbished good old vintage steel office book case. 10.5" reels fit perfectly in it. Spent more on paint than I did on the cabinet. It's orange and teal, but the camera shows the orange as red. Burgundy interior.

TEACstand.jpg
 
Here's the finished deck sitting on it's freshly refurbished good old vintage steel office book case. 10.5" reels fit perfectly in it. Spent more on paint than I did on the cabinet. It's orange and teal, but the camera shows the orange as red. Burgundy interior.

Looking sweet! Congrats.
 
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