armadillofarm
New member
Hi everyone, new member here. I just bought my first reel-to-reel, a Tascam 388. It's not working (I knew this when I bought it and I bought it for cheap). It appears to be in immaculate condition, very clean, powers up fine, I checked the inputs, they're fine. The problem? The tape won't turn. When I hit fast forward, play, rewind, or load, it goes forward (or backward, appropriately) for about 0.1 second and then stops. The capstan motor appears to be working fine. The belt is not super tight, but everything is turning fine in there. I have not cleaned anything yet, but nothing seems gunked up to me (though I have zero experience with these things and yes, I will be cleaning it ASAP). In my tinkering I pushed up the tension rollers a bit with no tape in and hit play and got the reels to spin fine. Anyone have any ideas? I am clueless here. Thanks!