Sony DTC-60ES woes after cleaning - won't play back at right speed

[hcanning]

Hi all,

My Sony DTC-60 ES had the common grease issue that affected the proper loading of the tape arms.

Prior to this it played back beautifully when it did work. A couple of weeks ago I had it apart to give the arm gears a clean and after that, it went back to loading a tape and playing perfectly. But the other day I noticed the issue was back - I took the gears part properly this time to remove all the grease from their little spindles and it felt much cleaner and smoother. The arms now load the tape nice and fast.

But it now doesn't play properly. If I hit play, the tape moves far too fast, and the speed is really inconsistent. Fast forwarding and rewinding seem to work but after a while it'll just get upset and throw a 'caution' error.

I have uploaded a video below, as this probably best visualises the issue in the hope that someone can advise what I might have done wrong?!

And another video showing from the other side when I press play. It looks like the pinch roller moves towards the capstan then retracts a little?

And some photos of my mechanism are attached.

As I say, it played back perfectly prior to me taking it apart to clean the loading arms.

Many thanks in advance!

 

[hdrobien]

Hi

On your second video, it is clear that the pinchroller is not making contact with the capstan, thus the inconsistent speed.

Normally the loading, thus the pinchroller position, should be locked with the rubber brake pad pinching the lowest white gear.

So I would check this rubber brape pad.

 

[hcanning]

Hi

On your second video, it is clear that the pinchroller is not making contact with the capstan, thus the inconsistent speed.

Normally the loading, thus the pinchroller position, should be locked with the rubber brake pad pinching the lowest white gear.

So I would check this rubber brape pad.

Thank you. I seem to now have a new problem... Since cleaning the arm slider mechanism including the little spring bits some more and putting it back together, when I load a tape I hear an oscillating whirring sound which sounds like something struggling and causing too much power draw....

Any thoughts?!

This is going from bad to worse

 

[hcanning]

It seems like the capstan is failing to spin up properly...

 

[hcanning]

I've re-seated all the connections to the capstan motor and it seems to be behaving now, and I've noticed the cause of the pinch roller not engaging is this spring missing! It was there before I started this morning! I can tell from photos I took.



I've looked high and low in my office and I cannot find it anywhere. Great! Time to look for a parts machine I guess...

 

[hcanning]

To conclude this thread:

The spring that held the rubber brake arm against the loading gears to keep the pinch roller engaged went missing, and after buying some replacements on amazon I found it hiding underneath the capstan motor board!! I am sure I looked under there, but clearly not hard enough.

This would also have explained the weird power cycling/misbehaving of the deck shown in my video above as it must have been shorting something out!

Anyway, the deck is now back to its former glory, loading super fast and playing music beautifully.

 

[hcanning]

I have now noticed that 2 tapes I recorded since doing this process are full of dropouts. They do not play properly and the muting relay keeps clicking as it can't lock on to a decent signal.

If I try some tapes that I recorded previously, they play absolutely perfectly with no issue at all.

Any ideas what might cause this? I've never cleaned the head - should I do this carefully? Are there separate record and play heads on the drum?

 

[hdrobien]

There are 2 heads on the drum, both are play and rec.

Have you already replaced the smd capacitors in the rf amp ?