Hi all, I recently acquired a Sony Walkman TPS-L2. I've replaced all the belts. I tried to play a cassette and it didn't reroll the tape back into the cassette, it just started spooling it out of the top. I believe the culprit is that the other roller isn't rolling the tape back into the cassette. Please help. My mother's birthday is on the 17th but I leave for college on the 12th. Also, What is the best way of retouching or replacing the decals and prints on the body (not shown).
Hello and welcome here Daniel I guess a hair fine crack on the wheel gear is to blame. It is the gear wheel directly on the winding spindle. Test it so : Hold the gear wheel, if now the spindle can turn very easily. You have a problem. If so, you need a device for spare parts. I would then buy a TCM-600, which are cheap. Good luck.
The belt that attaches to the motor is not a normal circular loop. It has to be inverted so it's like a figure 8. Get this wrong and your take up will spin in the wrong direction compared to the capstan and your tape will just spill out as described.
In fact, now I see it too. I have assumed that the walkman is playing correctly, but the tape does not wind to right reel.
Im going to make a few assumptions here based on the info Tape spools out because the take up hub is going counter clockwise due to the belt being attached to the motor wrong. You have subsequently sorted that issue, but now the sound is dull and flat sounding? If this is the case, you have a head alignment issue and this is a doddle to fix. But we probably need to clarify the first points are correct first
I have switched the motor belt so the belt now runs the correct way. now the sound is dull and flat as you said.
perfect.... do you have a decent pre recorded tape to hand, as well as a small screw driver, a wooden cocktail stick (toothpick) and some red Nail varnish (bear with me on this.... it isnt about to get weird)
If you do, and you still have all the case work removed, this is quite easy. First things first, lets assume you have cleaned the heads with a cotton bud and isopropyl as well as the Capstan? You also need to clean the pinch roll rubber. Ideally not with Isopropyl, but just this once wont hurt... Let everything dry for a minute or two Insert a cassette. looking down on the tape and tape head (assuming the case work is removed), you will see a small screw to the LEFT hand side of the tape playback head. This adjusts the position of the head ever so slightly. This has probably drifted over the 40 years. If you turn it whilst listening to a cassette you will notice that the sound clears up and gets nice and clear (dependent of course on the quality of the recording and the tape itself....) or gets duller, like its under water and out of phase. Small adjustments back and fourth until you are happy. Now remove the tape... press play again and use the cocktail stick to dab a small, tiny amount of nail varnish to the screw head where it meets the plate underneth and then when that dries your head alignment should stay good for a long time. DONT get varnish on anything other than whats been stated... if you dont have a steady hand, find someone who does. Now.... this really comes into play when you have good recordings made on a good, well calibrated machine. If you dont, and you dont have access to a prerecorded cassette, and all you have is just a tape made on a machine whos quality cant be assured, you would basically be lining up your walkman to play back tapes made on a cassette deck that was also out of alignment Bear that in mind I would not suggest you get any more involved than this at this point...
Sounds good, thank you so much for all the help. I really appreciate it and I'm sure my mother will too on her birthday.
