Fostex X-28 4 track troubleshooting

[int0]

I have a Fostex X-28 that was working fine years ago. Now, it powers up fine and rewinds and fast forwards. However, when I press play, the heads engage and seem to try to turn but immediately shut off. All the lights on the console light up solid too and the whole machine is locked up.

The funny thing is, when I turn it off and turn it back on again, the motor spins and the tape plays because the heads are still engaged. However the machine is in some sort of funky state as I can't press stop to disengage at this time; I end up pressing play again and the heads disengage and the machine locks up again.

I have it apart, the belts are intact and everything seems to spin freely. Any ideas as to what I should be troubleshooting?

 

[Level Anything]

I might be some grease that hardened between some gears or a pulley. If you can, start taking it apart and see if you can find the stuck gear. This happened to a Porta of mine and I went looking through the whole transport and found that the grease between the flywheel for the capstan and a gear underneath it had mixed with dust to the point of hardening up and stopping it from turning. You might find something.