ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Ok folks, I was fitting new belts to my tape player after it stopped playing properly. Anyway, the belt that drives the drawer in and out was pretty much perished so I also replaced that. Nonetheless, it still isn't going in and out properly.
I press open and it comes out a few inches, it doesn't go in at all. It's slightly better when I don't have the LP deck on top of it but not much. It also makes a metal on metal scrape sound as if something's rubbing but I can't work out what. I completely removed the runners and cleaned them as well as the rubber wheels. I've added some WD40 in the places it looked like it might be scraping but no change.
Has anyone encountered the same problem? Part of me almost wonders if this is just age and that the drawer is sagging onto the base of the main case. Or whether maybe the motor's torque decreases over the years?
Will it open and close correctly without the top cover ?
Martin
I've seen this a few times, and it has always been one of the four plastic wheels which cracked.
WD40 is a no-no - there must be GOOD friction on the rubber surrounds of those wheels, to move smoothly.
You may also have to replace those rubber surrounds.
Menahem
WD40 is not the solution to things hitting or scraping on eachother.In my opinion, WD40 should be kept in the garage.
Take the rails apart and check the four small rubber wheels.The symptoms you decribe could be that of one come off or broken.
EDIT: Menahem beat me to it but at least we seem to agree this time.
Dillen: EDIT: Menahem beat me to it but at least we seem to agree this time.
Wow, I'm am going to bookmark this page - Menahem and Martin in agreement. :)This is a good day.
Martin, you made my day!
I had a GREAT laugh!
No, really, we do agree on quite a lot - just that nobody knows about it!
Technically, and seriously.
This WD40 is bad news.
WD means Water Dispersant - highly corrosive - the last thing you want anywhere near copper traces, and degrades rubber into goo.
It is a great marketing scoop - sells like crazy, but very few even know how dangerous it is, in an electronic environment.
All that it's technically good for, is spraying into your door-locks before an ice storm.
I have never bought any of this WD40 junk for over 20 years.
For Oil, I use a simple Penetrating Oil Spray - any brand is fine.
For Plastic lubrication, I use Silicone Spray - any brand.
No need for anything else.
I've seen and fixed this twice, both times the issue being one of the reinforcing bars at the back popping the plastic welded tab and therefore sagging enough to catch the power supply front plate. I thought it was the grounding screw at first, but that proved not to be the case.
Fix was not elegant but effective, a dab with the plastic welding tip on a Weller soldering gun.
I've concluded that the 5500 and similar systems are best set up as two stacked pairs with tape and turntable on the top, having had this issue with two of the three cassettes in this family that I've owned