Tascam 244 (new belts) still has play/rewind problem

[Jonk]

Hey folks,

I picked up a 244 for cheap, knowing I'd have to replace the belts. I ordered the belts from Teac. I got the idler tires and pinch roller from an ebay source that I've had good luck with in the past.

Anyway, capstan is spinning nice and smoothly. All the parts appear to be the right size.

Fastforward works fine. But play doesn't play. It just fastforwards when I press play. And rewind rewinds, but only for about 3 seconds and then stops.

Any idea what could be going on here?

I'm wondering if I put in a wrongly sized replacement for one of these parts (doesn't seem like it) or if I might have another issue going on, perhaps in the logic circuit? (hope not)

Any ideas?

 

[A Reel Person]

...

Make sure when you press Play the pinch roller moves up completely to contact the capstan.

 

[Jonk]

Thanks
Yes, the pinch roller nicely contacts the capstan in play mode, but play is still the same speed as ff.

 

[A Reel Person]

...

Open up the bottom and verify the belt is properly placed on the pulleys and is a good snug fit. If the belt rides down onto the motor pulley flange it will increase the Play speed.

 

[Jonk]

Hey thanks,

Nevermind about that problem. I didn't realize I have to have a cassette tape in to get it to play at 'play' speed. Doh!I was just pressing up on the tab that starts the capstan.

The idler tire on the bottom seems to have gone out of round already (they were an ebay purchase and a really tight fit) So I think I'm just gonna order the whole idler wheel from teac. But that's another issue.

My rewind problem (I think) was just my lack of knowledge about the way the RTZ works. i.e. I'm used to just pressing the RTZ button like on the 424, rather than arming it and then pressing rewind, so. . . . that's solved as well.

The remaining issue that I've only discovered now is that the right channel 'line outs' and 'aux outs' don't work. These are linked together I can see in the machine. I can pan right and get signal if I'm monitoring out of the "tape cue" outs, but I'd really like the right channel 'line out' to work. Could be the master fader or the output amp associated with the right side? Hmmmm. I don't know if anybody here has any ideas. Perhaps I should change the title of my post.

Btw, this thing sound awesome so far, compared with my 424.

 

[A Reel Person]

Putting a tape in makes a huge difference!

If no cassette is in the well, pressing Play will cause the right spindle to turn at maximum speed, although the capstan should turn at normal speed.

Idler tires from eBay going out of round? Maybe new/oldstock or used tires? I'd suggest looking up a thread here that details common faucet O-rings that replace the standard tires. A variety of similarly sized O-rings would suffice, not just the specific ones on the thread. O-rings will be new rubber and last much longer.

Your Line/Aux Outs are indeed 2 sets of stereo jacks in parallel. I'd be curious if the headphone output also has this R-channel failure, as opposed to just the RCA output jacks. If you have no "R" output signal on the headphones and the RCA Line/Aux Out jacks, then I'd suspect the Master fader or some connection or electronics in the Master L/R Buss path. If you have Right and Left signal properly in the headphones, I'd suspect something more downstream toward the RCA Line/Aux Out jacks, an output buffer amp, etc. Mind you, this is off the cuff and I've not looked at the schematic.

Sometimes it's a matter of cleaning the internal wipers of the Master fader, or perhaps finding a loose connection or wire somewhere in the internals. I'm of the opinion that for any device that may have sat unused for a long period of time in unknown environmental conditions, that a good reseating of the connectors may clean up and resolve any connections that have gone bad or intermittent. Try it.