Sony WM-2

Hey everyone, I only singed up initially because of this topic.

I recently made an impulse cheeky bid on an ebay WM2. It was listed as broken, and it was filthy. Nicotine stains inside, dirt ingrained everywhere especially in the button wells. It was also splattered in various colours of paint. Perhaps owned by a trades person.

For me the good news was a new belt got it working, but it was noisy in operation. So I stripped it down a bit, cleaned up everything I could. Spent hours on the shell getting it glowing again. Now it looks really respectable but still sufficiently beat up to be a daily driver.

Then someone on a FB page asked if the center gear was cracked. This send me down the rabbit hole. Its been opened a couple more times to lube and get it working more quietly. I was happy with its performance but the threat of a bad center gear had me worried.

So I found here and I'd like to give my info for the greater good if it helps.

So my units serial number is 254845, not a super low number. it was the earlier FWD play button. It also however says Sony Walkman II. So not early and not late is my guess. I don't know about the IC, don't know where to look. But I think I can confirm I've got the entirely plastic center gear, and its perhaps the thinner one? I'm hoping you can give you're view. I can't upload a vid here, so here is a link to a Youtube upload I made.

 

Here is a couple of after pictures. I'm really pleased how its turned out and I don't think I'll ever get rid of this WM2.

 

Center gear is in great condition it seems, I carefully spun the copper/brass (whatever) flywheel round until I'd see the entirety of the plastic gear and its spotless.

Are there sources for any other spares?

 

Playback is decent too. The longer I use it the quieter the unit is getting! My guess it was heavily used when new and then abandoned in a drawer for decades.

 

Have just purchased a unit from TradeMe with a suspended broken belt.
When it arrives will give the details of what it is.

 

I purchased a WM-2 on eBay for $50 CAD about a week ago. It just arrived yesterday and I spent the day repairing it. I attached one of the listing photos. Yes, it was broken in half from one of the previous repair attempts. Thankfully the break was in a place such that I was able to not just glue the broken area, but also screw it into place to further secure it. This is ideal and practically invisible. I don’t think I’d notice the crack if I didn’t know it was there. I am so glad I was able to save it, and for a great price!!! For the Walkman taxonomists in this thread below is the specifics of the Walkman I have. I included a photo of the circuit board as well.

Serial No. - 330569
Gear type - solid plastic, non cracked
Auto motor stop - No
Play button type - FWD
Name print - Walkman II

 

What a find funny is I posted asking how hard were these to work on (on a Facebook page). And was told practice on cheap stereos first before attempting on the WM2 and take my time. But the WM2 is just so well designed at coming apart. Certainly for the old WM2 that I 'have.

 

Thanks for sharing! We are working on adding PCB and mech photos to Walkman.land, can I use your photos?

 

Latest addition, now have the belt clip. Kinda expensive but still cheapest I could find and it works well.




And the 3D printed cover, it doesn't hold when no batteries in place, but does seem to hold when batteries are in place. Looks ok.

 

All was going so well. Until today, I fired a cassette into my WM2 and it sounded really noisy when I hit FWD. It was silent in FF/RWD but really noisy when playing, then the play head started to judder when pressing play and not engaging. A lot of careful disassembly and I found the culprit. The Flywheel/capstan gear has a grove worn into it. Which basically means it doesn't engage spindle/capstan or read head properly.

Try as I might I can't find a source for a replacement gear or even just a better capstan/flywheel. Does anyone on here have a source for this part? Looks like its no perhaps very prone to wear. Its definitely this part as if I leave off the circlip off the capstan and push the capstan into the unit maybe 1mm so its able to engage it runs perfectly and very quietly.

Gear itself is approx 6.8mm diameter, about 4mm tall (above its counter sink into the flywheel), center bore is about 3.5mm and it has 22 teeth.

Really need this gear or a good flywheel from a junked unit... plus the capstan washers (as I lost one of those during disassembly).

 

Just finished repairing and doing some maintenance to my newly purchased wm-2 which I got for 60 dollars NZ and a ten dollars for the belt, centre gear was in great condition. Cosmetically it’s about 7.5 out of 10, just scuffs from general use but plays beautifully.
Everything 100% complete with no damage.
As you can see it has play on the play button. And the serial number is
999143
Cheers Kiwinut

 

I got a replacement gear for the capstan. There's a chap in France who sells them on ebay. Just the gear, so you butcher out the old gear and then push fit the new one. And I think I know why mine wore out, my capstan has a slight kink, must be close to the flywheel because its barely noticeable when the gears are turning. Just the faintest of quivers. The capstan itself is perfect which is why I never noticed the issue. So this replacement gear might fail in the same way, but hopefully not for a long time. Plus I've got a decent looking second hand one coming from Japan at some point.

 

I finally go round to cataloging how I got from purchase to where I am now with my WMII. Well nearly, I've not included the latest Capstan work. Also spun off a proper dedicated channel where I'll share all the stuff I learn. Won't be much help for seasoned users on here but might be fun to watch me blindly navigate my way through restoring the less desirable personal stereos.

 

I bought a WM-2 (SN: 640858) off ebay.

Initial condition was non-functional, not powering on with batteries.

General repairs were:

- Replace belt (Deck Tech belt)
- Clean corrosion off of battery terminals
- Replace battery wires (corroded through)
- Rewire to DC-in part of board
- Clean up corrosion on DC-in component leads
- Reattached plastic washer onto play button carriage which came off (stuck to center gear)
- general clean up with duster, iso, and lubing up the recommended parts.

The walkman powers on now and runs as expected. Play, FFW, REV, and Stop all work as expected with no grinding or unexpectedly popping out of gear.

Sound Test and new issues:

Audio was playing far too fast. Not just pitch, the system is running too quickly. Volume is also crackly and drops channels depending on where it's dialed. I tried putting some deoxit on and turning it back and forth to clean it up but it didn't do much. Using the pitch adjustment only moderately helped and it still plays too fast even when dialed as low as the adjustment can go. Also a new problem popped up when I was adjusting things: It started eating tapes. Specifically the tape take-up gear seems to be running faster than the capstan was so it was playing a bit too fast still, but also pulling the tape tight around the return roller in the tape. So it pulled tight, started grinding the tape and chewed it up making it seize up after a moment.

That issue doesn't really make sense to me unless the playback speed and take-up gear aren't fully coupled somehow. Not really sure where to go from here if anyone has any tips. I didn't see anything in this thread that was relevant to this particular issue.

 

The playing too fast is likely caused by a mechanical problem, not by motor running too fast, hence why adjusting the speed doesn't solve the problem.
Fact it's also eating tapes suggests the pinch roller is not (fully) engaged and may also sit at an angle. If that happens, the tape will slip past the capstan/roller.
And instead of being pulled by the capstan, the tape will be pulled by the takeup reel (which as you noted rotates faster).

Takeup reel is normal to rotate faster than the capstan because there are different reel speeds at beginning/end of tape.
Hence why you need a higher speed that the maximum you will need (which is at the beginning of tape).
That's why there's a clutch in there, so its slipping constantly adjusts to the current reel speed (decreasing at tape gets towards the end).

 

Thank you for the tip, I tried pressing on the pinch roller carriage to see if that adjusted anything and it seems it is making too little contact right now as the playback speed went down as you suspected. When I put the walkman in Play without a tape, I can see the pinch roller does spin, so it is making some contact. Looking at some of the tutorials you have listed I checked best I can for misalignment or sitting at an angle, but it does seem to be sitting flat and decently true with the capstan. There is a small amount of noticeable wobble, but I have no idea if it's anything. Seems I need to adjust the pinch roller's contact right now.

Is there a way to do that? Or is this a case of simply needing to get a new pinch roller? (which I probably should do as well). The Service manual only details measuring the spring tension for proper tension, and has a very unhelpful diagram for adjusting the playback head height with shims, but nothing specifically for adjusting how much pressure the pinch roller has against the capstan.

EDIT: Additional point: I think the tapes being eaten may have been user error due to having the enclosure off while running tapes and not making sure that it wasn't resting in a way that put weird stress on the tape head carriage. It hasn't happened in the last round of tests and I had the enclosures back on. But the first test I did with the enclosures back off it happened within a few seconds. Because I was sitting it down with the tape head carriage resting on the desktop. Other orientations don't cause the issue.

 

Fact roller is wobbly can indicate the roller itself is eccentric. While this will affect the W&F, it's probably not the cause of your problem.

As far as adjusting the pinch roller pressure, service manual doesn't say anything about it because it's not adjustable. Only way to adjust it would be to change the spring with stiffer/softer one.
However, your problem is most likely related to the head bridge not fully engaging rather than a spring problem. So this is what I would check first.

In regard to having the door off, that shouldn't matter as long as cassette is sitting flat in the compartment.
Note there are 2 springs on the back which keep the cassette down, these may need to be bent back sometimes.

Also another thing to check is the takeup torque: if it's too high it can also create this symptom.
While unit is running with no cassette, stop the takeup reel with your fingers and note how much force it takes to stop it.
There should be some resistance, but you shouldn't struggle to stop it.

As a sidenote, no need to quote previous posts. Type in the box below and press "Post Reply" instead of using "Reply" button (as this quotes automatically).

 

Thanks for the tip, new here and not familiar with the posting culture.

As far as the head bridge, I'm not sure what I'd check there. Should I start with adjusting the tape guide?

For the takeup torque: Yeah it's really strong. It took some significant pressure to get it to stop turning and even then only barely. I'm going to assume this might mean I need to clean the belt drive pullys better? Or is there something else that should be looked at first?

 

In the daylight actually I can see that the pinch roller is tilted. Only contacting one side.