Decided today to take another crack at the TC-K700ES that has some kind of transport "malfunction."
The last time I had it open, the drive belt seemed loose, so I ordered a replacement then, and installing it seemed like a good place to start today. The belt replacement went okay—turned out to be much easier than I imagined, but it didn't fix the malfunctions. When I reinstalled the transport and tested it, it was eating tape—the capstan was feeding tape, but the take-up reel wasn't working. FF and REW didn't work.
Since the unit was already opened up and the transport assembly easily removed, I decided to check out the transport at the next level. Do so revealed that the default position of the take-up pinch lever assembly (part #211) is ENGAGED (pix
), and it doesn't disengage when the unit is powered up. So cassettes can't be loaded without manually disengaging the assembly. In contrast, the default position of the other pinch lever assembly (#241) is DISENGAGED. I could not visually determine why #211 remains ENGAGED.
At that point I decided that any further disassembly should be left to a professional, or at least a much more experienced hobbyist than myself, and I should follow-through on my intention of a couple of months ago to sell the unit for parts.
Which brings me to my second problem—reassembling the transport. I took pictures before disassembly and have studied the parts illustration, but I'm stumped trying to reassembly one part in particular. One end of the spring is shown attached to #231, plate (left), assy, fulcrum. The other end of the spring, attached to the "mystery" part, seemingly #272, lever lock, which is installed elsewhere. But the "mystery" part I have doesn't seem to match #272 shown in the parts illustration in the manual.
So I'm stuck on the reassembly. Any practical suggestions or photos (or heartfelt expressions of sympathy) would be much appreciated.