Recently acquired a nice TPS-L2. The device wasn't in too bad a condition. Belts were still intact, but naturally had kept their form and started to glue to the motor shaft, and pulleys. I have replaced the belts, and cleaned the motor pulley, and other components the belts utilise, and have a Walkman that now plays. I made a few mistakes, initially I hadn't realised the spring for the auto stop mechanism had unhooked itself, but have that working again now. What I am finding at the moment is that the play speed varies. First I thought the AA batteries I had may be naff, so bought fresh new batteries as the ones prior had been in a drawer for a few years. I'm still getting an inconsistent play speed though, but it's not consistent enough, or intime with the mechanism. And having put the device back together following the re-attachment of the auto stop spring, I am noting that playback will slightly slow for a while, then all of a sudden, it's like it suddenly frees up and it's back to normal playback speed. Not seeing anything interfere with the drivetrain, and the duration of the slowness doesn't match with the RPM of the mechanism. If it's left off for a while, it can also be a bit sluggish, so perhaps this could be cap related and I'll need to strip it right down to check each capacitor? I suspect this is normal, but movement can also affect the play speed sometimes, like the inertia has an affect (note: not sudden jolts, but say, rotating the device can cause a wobble). I'd love to get this in a better working condition if possible. So look forward to your help. He's a short video I took of the mechanism out of the casing before I fixed the auto-stop. I might record another to try and catch the issue which may be helpful. https://peertube.co.uk/videos/watch/f1de7cb7-51f0-4b30-b5a5-27353e06c269 (Peertube is a decentralised video host site)
@tomtom87 yes, I did spot that when I noticed auto-stop no longer worked. It's fixed. What you see there is the spring had jumped over the plastic peg and rotated so it was back to front. The spring is still fine and the auto-stop mechanism still works. Furthermore, I reposted this on the Walkman thread which has had input from Valentin, and so far things are okay. I suspect the motor may need a clean as after a while of use it starts to struggle again but if you leave it and come back to it it's fine again. http://stereo2go.com/forums/posts/57899/
@AMoonRabbit I added a link with a motor disassembly and maintenance tutorial to the restoration thread, made by a forum member. So check this one in regard to the motor. I would start by lubricating the top bearing and spraying some contact cleaner on the botton hole (after cap is removed), then let the motor run for a couple of minutes. If things don't improve, I would disassemble the motor, clean it completely and relubricate it. Also look in the service manual for the 2 "adjustments" of the servo (2 pairs of 2 pads that can be soldered/not soldered). I will put a link here as well: https://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/wm-3-tps-l2-wm-3-motor-disassembly-and-maintenance.7424/
