Sony TC377 help!

Hi..I have managed to get my 40 yr old Sony TC 377 tape back to full use. Apart from cleaning heads....what a difference that makes, I have removed all brake pads which were hard and worn. I have used felt from craft shop....self adhesive. Seems to work. Is there anything which somebody could recommend which may last longer?

Also , I notice on fast forward that some tape gets thrown off when it comes to halt...nothing serious...is this normal...or are the pads at fault. Thanks for any advice. Ian

"Shoe Goop" it's like a rubber cement/filler, still you would be able to scrape it off later if you changed your mind. I haven't used it for what you're doing. It just popped into my head. The stuff probably needs to cure for 24 hours, but then it would be pretty tough. You'll have a lot left over to fix a few pairs of your sneakers.

It just occurred to me that I probably need to do what you're doing to my TC-270. It's probably the brake pads, not the brake lever adjustment, that's causing my brakes to slip like they didn't do a couple years ago.

I owned a TC366/TC377 for 11 years.......(The difference between the models is electrical and the 377 has different heads. Mechanically they are the same.)

It could be that the pad tension is unequal. The service manual will explain how to check and adjust pad tension. If you can't find a sm, try some minute adjustments until braking is even on both sides.

It could also be that the back tension adjustments are off. Again it's pretty easy to adjust once you know what's what.

With that deck a spring tension gauge is a very useful tool. The SM gives the specs for one but a fish scale that falls in the right range will work for some adjustments.

Luckily that is one of the easiest to work on quality r2r machines of all time and worth the effort, at least imho.

I looked for my old service manual but could not find it. Analog Engine has one for free (you must first be a registered member) at http://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/sony/tc-377.shtml