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Yamaha KX-W421 service

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leadfoot4

New Member
Hello, a new member here!

I have a Yamaha KX-W421 dual well, cassette player/recorder. It's approximately 18-20 years old, with "low mileage". I'm the original owner. Given it's age, I thought it would be a good idea to replace the drive belts, so I ordered replacements, and I, through some research, found a picture of the insides of this unit, on a site that I have since forgotten. Based on the picture, I thought it would be a fairly easy task, as it appeared that the belts were "out in the open", compared to some of the other cassette drive mechanisms that I saw in various videos that I came across.

However, I was only partially correct. After receiving the new belts, I wrestled the deck out of my entertainment center, and proceeded to remove the outer cover. Initially, I was quite happy, as the belts are indeed very visible. HOWEVER, after slipping the belt off the large pulley (capstan?) it appeared that the belt was "trapped" in position by a "support leg" of the drive motor. I assume, unless I completely overlooked something, that getting the belt around this leg will require extensive disassembly of the unit.

Do any members here, have any experience with this deck, and could enlighten me as to what has to be done, to remove/replace the belts? I was able to download a "service manual", but as others have mentioned, with respect to these manuals, they provide a lot of technical data, but very little on the steps required to make repairs and/or perform maintenance.

I'll appreciate any information that can be provided.
 
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It appears that this wasn't that popular of a tape deck, so there's not much info out there. I did read, somewhere else, that if I remove the "cover" from the front side of the cassette unit, I can remove a couple of mounting screws that hold the drive motor in place. At that point, it might create enough "play" for me to slip the motor rearward enough to be able to squeeze the belt between the motor's attaching "arm" and the back of the cassette player's framework. In turn, I could then squeeze the new belt in place.

Unfortunately, life has kept me quite busy, so I'm hoping to tackle this project fairly soon.
 
It's been a while, since my above posts, and after some fiddling around, I was able to replace the belts. However, this project, which I thought would be a basic "R&R" job, has more or less, gone off the rails. Long story short, after getting the belts replaced, I can't get the unit to work properly. It appears that something has gotten "out of sync".

After replacing the belts, I first attempted to play a tape, and neither "well" would work, and I was puzzled. I would plug in the power cord, the motors would start up for about 3 seconds, all the pulleys would spin, and then it would stop. If I tried to put a cassette in place and hit "play", I'd hear, "click-click-click", then nothing and the door latch would remain engaged.

After manually pushing the door lock back, I could open the door and remove the tape. I took a second look at the repair instructions, and they mentioned that I could press the "reset" and "play" buttons simultaneously, with the cassette doors open, and that would put the unit in "clean" mode, which starts up the drive motors and lifts the rollers, so you can clean them. I tried that, and in that mode, both the "A" and "B" wells operated as they should.

However, after cycling through this action several times, only the "B" well will actually play a tape. Well "A", with a tape in place, and the "play" button is pushed, will lock the door in the closed position, lift the head and rollers, as if to play the tape, but then it appears to push the cassette another 1/16" upward, where it seems to jam the cassette, and then gives me the dreaded "click-click-click", then nothing....and the door stays latched.

I'm at my wits end. Does anyone have any idea as to what might be wrong?? Any help would be greatly appreciated!!
 
Seems that even more time has passed, and I still haven't gotten this cassette deck back "in service". The latest is this...

I was fiddling around with it, and somehow, miraculously, the "A" well will now actually spool a cassette, and the door lock functions as it should. HOWEVER, the "A" well still won't play a tape,. It simply fast forwards through it, in both directions. So I've traded one issue for another, and the unit still doesn't work properly.

Anybody have any ideas of what is now wrong?
 
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