Requesting help with a 244

[Bbmollusk]

Hi there, I’m new to cassettes but I recently took the plunge and purchased a fixer upper 244, followed Tetrakan’s youtube tutorial and replaced all the rubber components (belts, tires, and pinch roller) which were all really gunky. I replaced the belts and tires from a replacement kit and the pinch roller from some sellers on ebay - everything seemed to fit snugly.
Popped in a fresh tape and it makes a bad grinding/buzzing sound and sucks tape out of the cassette when I press play… when I check things out without a tape in the deck, things seem to be turning as they should… am I missing something obvious?
Also the black take-up reel spinnymabob kept sliding off the transport when I had it removed and flipped over, I wonder if it’s not engaging properly with the gears and if it’s maybe missing something to hold it down and in place.. any thoughts or advice would be much appreciated. Thanks

 

[sweetbeats]

The reel drive spindles are held on by tiny plastic split rings, like tiny little plastic circlips. Maybe the one for the takeup spindle is missing.

And the grinding…you replaced all the belts but did you do the mechanical alignment procedure to make sure the head base assembly (the whole thing that the heads mount to and slides up and down) is in the right position at the right time? See page 22 of the Service Manual, section 6-4-3 Head Base Position. Also, when you had stuff apart, did you verify that all rotating mechanisms that operate the head base turn freely? It’s pretty common to have to disassemble the gear drive and clean the old lubricant off and apply new lubricant. The old lubricant can prevent things from rotating and then the gearing can skip/grind, and in extreme cases teeth can break and/or gears/pulleys can break.