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Panasonic boombox cassette deck needs help

C

CPQ5360

New Member
Hi, I have a Panasonic RX-C39 portable stereo from 1984 or thereabouts. 10 or 15 years ago the cassette deck developed a problem in that it makes a grinding noise when you play a tape.

If you engage playback without a tape inserted, the deck acts fine. But when you play a tape, or when you play without a tape and manually stall the take-up spindle, it grinds.

I took apart the stereo, and it turns out the grinding is caused by a spring-loaded gear which, during playback, slightly retracts backwards, going out of mesh with and grinding against the gear it's supposed to be engaged with.

I made a YouTube video showing the behavior of the deck with and without a tape:

Fast forward, rewind, etc work fine. The two belts seem fine - the deck is able to engage into record mode, which I know needs pretty good belts to accomplish. With that said, I won't rule out less-than-stellar belts as the problem.

Any ideas? I've been told this is a common occurrence on this stereo. Thanks in advance!
 
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If the belts are good and your idlers are clean and intact, it may be a lubrication issue.
Sometimes the lubricants that were used 30 years ago will gum up, which won't allow full positive engagement, so you end up with issues like mechanical noise, "eating" tapes, failure to lock the transport, etc. Whether or not the auto-stop engages is often a good indication that things are sticking (specifically on mechanical decks), but it's not always the case. If the belts aren't slipping then they are not a very likely culprit. If they are, change them.
I've never worked on this deck but being that it's fully mechanical, you should be able to sort it out with some careful observation.
 
I had a problem with a dump-find Sharp GF-8585X whereby the stop/eject button would jam after using it to stop playback. When the button jammed, it rendered other controls inoperable and would not eject the cassette either. Despite looking visually clean, it turned out to be good old fashioned lubrication (or lack thereof) that was the issue. I used a light application of white lithium grease on as many of the sliding mechanisms as I could and found that after working all the keys several times the whole mechanism ran much better.
 
Also, as posted above, look for wear in the idlers. My Sharp has a tiny little cog for FF that interacts with an idler running against the capstan flywheel. On inspection, the tiny little cog had lost some teeth and appeared to be disintegrating due to oil contamination.
 
Thank you both for the responses - sorry for the overdue reply. I don't have access to the stereo right now, but when I do again I'll give the mechanism a good go-over and report back.
 
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