Help, my bookshelf stereo is killing tapes

[Serranian]

Hi lads!

So, long story short, I'm what could be called a Minidisc enthusiast and I own a JVC UX-Z7MDR (pic below for reference), which also happen to have a tape player.



The tape part wasn't working (you'd hear a few mechanic noises but then it'd stop without reading anything), but since I bought it used mainly for the Minidisc part it didn't bother me much until a few days ago. Having gained some confidence after the successful Crown restoration, I've decided to give it a go. Needless to say, it was a real pain in the arse to reach the cassette part, and I basically had to dismantle everything. Surprisingly, nothing seemed to be wrong with the mechanism, so I cleaned it, changed the belt to be sure and reassembled the whole thing.

And then, it worked! Setting the right motor speed was a bit tricky once the whole thing was reassembled, but still manageable. Everything was working just fine and I was quite happy. But that was before I tried to record on a blank tape.

The sound was good for tape reading, but my recording attempts were awfull, with a lot of distortion on the sound. Since playback was okay I thought I'd try to just clean the heads... and that's where everything went down the drain. First I cleaned the head with isopropyl alcohol on a Q-tip, then I used a cleaning cassette supposed to clean heads, pinch rollers and also demagnetize. And that's where the mechanism started to damage the tapes. Before that, there was no issue whatsoever, but now I can't read anything (even the cleaning tape got damaged). Here's a pic of the blank tape I was using for the recording tests:



WHat do you think about it? What could cause the issue? I'd like to fix it (and hopefully avoid tearing down the whole device again) but I don't know what I should be looking for first. I could just be glad the Minidisc is still working and call it a day, but I really want to get the whole device fixed now, if possible

 

[Radio raheem]

you will need to buy new pinch rollers, you cannot restore the old ones, tried that a million times

 

[Hajidub]

If you take them off there's a guy on the web that re-does any roller (tape or turntable); google terrysrubberrollers. Looks like he's recovering from Covid right now, but he's the best there is!
http://www.terrysrubberrollers.com/

You could hit a office supply store and buy some rubber restorer (for copying machines), its worked for me before.

Side note: no need to demag a 2-head deck, it does nothing since the pb/rec head are one.

 

[Serranian]

Thanks for the infos lads, much appreciated

So, it'd be the pinch rollers... they looked okay when I cleaned the deck, but I'll see what I can do about it. I was hoping to find the size of these parts on the service manual, but unfortunately there's nothing. At least said manual showed me how to dismantle the front panel without having to remove everything else, which will spare me a fair amount of time. Is there anything in particular I should avoid when buying new pinch rollers?

Side note: no need to demag a 2-head deck, it does nothing since the pb/rec head are one.

Oh really? Well, the cleaning tape have this feature (even though I don't know if it's really good at it) so I didn't really think about it, but it's always nice to know, thank you

And thanks for the link, I might need it in the future. Hope the guy will get through this safe though

 

[hopey]

you will need to buy new pinch rollers, you cannot restore the old ones, tried that a million times

Yes these newer decks have poor rubber pinch rollers that go super soft, you can steal one from another deck. You should also replace the belts as there maybe an issue with the take up spool.