Hitachi TRK 8080e Tape Deck does not produce sound.

[heeron]

Hey there!
I've been tinkering with this tape-deck for about a week. Changed the belts and cleaned/lubed everything.
As far as I can see everything is working - mechanically at least. The tape plays/forward/rewind without issue, but the it doesn't produce any sound.

Do you have any ideas where I should go from here?
Is there a way to check if the tape heads are still working? I mean manually shorting them in order to produce a tone through the speaker? Or using a multimeter to see if they get the proper signals? The wires seem to be in working order.
I'm new to everything audio so any help would be appreciated.

 

[ralrein1]

Greetings heeron,we boombox guys and gal on this here site kinda dig it if you introduce yourself first. Since that didn't happen(maybe you just forgot to do it)I'll try to help. My limited knowledge says to do this. Get yourself some Deoxit D5 and spray it into the mode,selector switch and wiggle that sucker 20 or 30 times. Then squirt some into the Record Bar and work it back and forth 30 or more times. I had a Realistic box that I acquired on vacation this summer and it wouldn't put out sound on cassette either. Even though it mechanically worked. So I had to spray into the function switch multiple times and switched it back and forth between tape and radio. I mean I had to do it a lot! Then finally after 6 or 7 good blasts of Deoxit and all that switching it finally began to have sound on tape. Make sure to sop up all the extra liquid with toilet paper and let it sit for awhile(4 to 6 hours)then fire her up. Hopefully that will do the trick. Good luck to you,let us know how it turns out.

 

[heeron]

Thanks for the reply. I apologize for not doing the proper introduction.

I will try what you suggested and report back!

 

[baddboybill]

I know on my 8080 the functions switch was always a problem. Cleaning it may be best bet but switch might also need to be opened to check connectivity issues.

 

[crazygamer]

Greetings heeron,we boombox guys and gal on this here site kinda dig it if you introduce yourself first. Since that didn't happen(maybe you just forgot to do it)I'll try to help. My limited knowledge says to do this. Get yourself some Deoxit D5 and spray it into the mode,selector switch and wiggle that sucker 20 or 30 times. Then squirt some into the Record Bar and work it back and forth 30 or more times. I had a Realistic box that I acquired on vacation this summer and it wouldn't put out sound on cassette either. Even though it mechanically worked. So I had to spray into the function switch multiple times and switched it back and forth between tape and radio. I mean I had to do it a lot! Then finally after 6 or 7 good blasts of Deoxit and all that switching it finally began to have sound on tape. Make sure to sop up all the extra liquid with toilet paper and let it sit for awhile(4 to 6 hours)then fire her up. Hopefully that will do the trick. Good luck to you,let us know how it turns out.

Ditto to everything what he said, get some contact cleaner, sound issue always has to do with function switch and record bar inside. Good luck !

 

[heeron]

Thanks for the replies guys, I've gotten it working!

Pretty sure there was 2 issues:
Mode selector not working properly (thanks for the cleaning tip!). Doing that made some sounds come through the speaker, but only static. So I figured out there was an issue with the tape head alignment, it did not go down far enough for it to make contact with the tape.
I did a rough fix on that (image attached) with some aluminium foil and re-aligning the screws. Tried this 40-50 times and seems to be holding up.
I will make a proper fix once I get back in the shop.
Thanks a lot for the help! So satisfying getting it working.

 

[ralrein1]

Wow,that's very nice to hear and see. Thanks for the updates and pics heeron.Do let us know of your final proper fix. Some more pics of your boombox both inside and out would be neat too. Also stick around and become a regular here on our happy little site.