First, thanks to everyone who has chimed-in on this thread. It's been very helpful, and it filled-in a bit of Swiss-cheese in my brain from when I sold these years ago.
So, my story is similar. Recently I picked up a 9r on the Bay. The head wouldn't turn freely. Removing the mechanism revealed no obvious obstructions, however it was clear the head swivel mechanism needed lubrication. I replaced the belt (no real issue with that, but you do need to remember it's a direct drive motor under the right flywheel. Anyway, having a similar issue with an Awai AD-R650 that had dried grease on the shaft of a stubbornly-turning head, I used small drops of penetrating fluid on the head assembly shaft. I moved it manually until it began turning freely. The gear mechanism has a spring that is designed to "snap" the head into place against its azimuth stops. I replaced the spring with a stronger one, and the mechanism now turns freely and properly.
Other issues continue. Or, they aren't issues, but merely poor design. I have not verified the number stated in prior posts. Fast forward and rewind partially engage the head assembly, although I have not called for music search. It plays for a while and sometimes the mechanism will just stop, appearing to have trouble on take-up, but when the tape is removed, the take-up reels spin freely and go to an oddly high speed (probably another problem I just didn't know about). Other design flaws are apparent, such as a board in the back with one screw, but two holes (the second hole does not align with the screw mount hole beneath it, so only one screw is holding the small board). Economy is evident as the plastic chassis is a divorce from the solidly-built prior line (CT-F900/950/1250 -- all of which I have picked-up and fixed).
FWIW, I entered retail sales in 1981, right at the time the prior Pioneer line was being phased out and these rather ugly and cheap machines hit the market. I worked at Standard Sales/Wilsons/Leads -- a catalog showroom chain in Florida, and I ran the sound room at one of the locations while getting my degree in college. I can't remember ever taking a return on a CT-F900/950/1250 -- even for repair; they could be dropped from the back of a truck and still play/record like new. But I have the memory of going into work only to find we'd taken a return on one of these decks -- it would be on my bench for me to verify needed to be replaced or sent to repair. They were junk. Electronics aside, which are useless w/o a good mechanism. No offense to anyone who loves these, but the "champaign" matte face meant you never knew when it was clean. Combined with the cheap plastic components, and LED segments all of which were such a vast departure from the prior line's clean, sleek, brushed aluminum with beautiful blue FL displays and clear controls that, when placed side-by-side, you might think they weren't made by the same company.
I'll get this one working. So far, I have recorded a test on a high bias tape, and it played back on my 1250 excellently. So, hope remains.
Oh, and one last seriously unfortunate feature on this deck -- it records in one direction only. From the look of the mechanism, having that second "dummy" erase head as a guide, I can't help but think an early concept of the 9r included bi-directional recording. Being in product management now, I can see how the then product manager would have been told to cut that feature as "unnecessary" at the time. However, the later Aiwa (that was a three-head model, too) I mentioned earlier had it. But the deck would need a second erase head and circuitry to command it. It didn't hit me at first, and then I vaguely remembered that was an odd "left out" feature from when I was selling them. I've never seen an auto-reverse deck before or after this model that didn't have bi-directional recording (I know about the Dragon, but successive decks from Sony, Aiwa, etc. did have bi-directional recording).
If anyone does have the drive assembly exploded parts view, that would help me quite a bit. This unit does not look like anyone has been in it (original clips/wiring/etc.). But before I go too far, I'd like to study the mechanism design.
