Hi there! I made a post about the TCS-470 a while back. It worked perfectly fine two weeks after that post but then it developed a scrapping noise which took a while to track down and fix (felt ring under the washer on the capstan was worn). Then after fixing that a little white switch on the circuit board got bent on accident while reassembly which caused it to cut in and out and it actually recorded the sound of it cutting out to the tape. I actually removed the switch and it fixed the issue and I'm not entirely sure what it was originally meant for ( muting switch when changing directions probably). THEN after that issue it developed another issue! If you lightly tapped the FF button it would record loud pops and clicks on the tape. I fixed this by moving the ribbon cable to the rec/play head out of the way since it seemed kinda jammed in the switch. Now it likes to randomly play way to fast, but if you smack the machine it will return to normal speed. Also if you yank out the headphones quickly that can also trigger it. Any advice?
You'll need some holy water, a priest and a virgin. In all seriousness, if you have a multimeter, do a continuity test. I'm unsure if this model uses ic to control the speed, if so you'd have to replace it. If this model is easy to get hold off, you might be better of swapping the pcb from another model.
update: I re soldered a bunch of solder joints that looked like they may have been causing the issue and now it actually works without speeding up. There is one little annoyance left which is the motor noise, Specifically the left channel which has this weird record-like crackling noise coming from the motor. Does anyone know anything on how to remove motor noise? thanks.
If it's mechanical noise from the motor? Then sewing machine oil. If not I would attribute it to a bad connection to grounding, I had a similar issue with my nakamichi bx cassette deck. This may be an unrelated problem, though.
Thanks for the advice, I tried oiling the motor and it didn't really help but thank you anyway. But about a week ago the take up reel started to jam and it would chew tapes. I took it apart and I think it was and old felt ring on a black wheel/gear that goes against a little rubber tire and a big gear that goes to both take up reels so i removed the felt pad and just glued it together and now it works but with noticeably weaker torque. But I swear the wow and flutter has gotten much worse than when I first got it so of course after fixing one thing another thing goes wrong.
