i found this Hitachi TRK 5190E i want to repair it

I got given a Hitachi TRK 5190E i would liek to restore it best i can but ive never really worked on one of these before so it will be a new experience all round.

The radio works on FM the other bands dont work i dont think they are being used in the UK any more though. the tape player doesnt work it makes noises but that is it so i guess i need belts so a good place to start is finding those. The volume knob is noisy i guess some electrical contact cleaner may fix that though.

i found this thread on here https://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/hitachi-trk-5190-er-belt-placement.5616/ seems like i need 10.5 inch 4.0 inch and 6.9 inch not sure exactly what thay would convert to in the uk though.

anything else to look out for? seems like its going to be quite a task to get the belts fitted and sourcing them as well so i guess in the meantime i should take it apart and clean it.

what sort of cleaning products cani use on this? i dont want to take off any lettering etc of course but i want to clean it as best i can

I cant seem to upload photo's i checked the photo guide doesnt work. it just whirs a bit when i try to upload then does nothing i resized to 2000 x 1500 no joy

 

oh apparently the photo's worked i didnt see anything saying they uploaded but i guess they did

ive cleaned it all up now looks a lot nicer took hours though. the mushy belts were a pain to chean all that black gunk but its done now unfortunately ive a slight issue i found a spring i dont know where it came from i checked the manual but couldnt figure it out ive got the service manual i uploaded as much of it as i can i had to split it up

 

lets try again ive uploaded all the p[arts except 2 pages that showed the back of the circuit board as i couldnt upload these as the files were way too big i will try to save them as photo's see if i can get the missing parts uploaded then

 

right i managed to take screen shots and got the rest of it hopefully someone knows where the little spring goes

 

The picture of the mystery spring is not very good. I can't tell if the spring has hooks on each end? Does it?

Hitachi-TRK-5190E-p7.pdf <--- if the spring has end hooks then this is the page with exploded parts diagram showing at least 14 small springs, at a casual glance. This is your best bet.

Take a better close up picture of the spring on a white sheet of paper so we can see it properly.

 

Did you remove the heads or anything like that??? also press rew ff play see if the cassette buttons pop up on their own

 

Yeah i did think it might be for the head to go in or out the rest are springs with hooks it seems,.

 

i removed the cassette unit but i ddnt touch the head.

i took the flywheel out to clean that and i took off the pulley on the motor and there was a small pulley which i found goes on whats called the capstan it has a small belt on it that was off to be cleaned also

fwd and rewind and play go down and pop up normally those have springs like this but they are much longer and not listed on the manuasl probably because the cassette unit is just listed mostly as 1 part.

 

seems like its around 5mm maybe slightly less

 

while im here anyone know how i could do a bluetooth mod on this? not really looked for a module yet but i expect they are pretty cheap and small

also the perspex lens type things on 2 of the switches is cloudy is there a way to restore this? maybe headlight restoration liquid? or is there anything else i can use? i have a scratch pen for car scratches also

 

I kinda breezed over the service manual to see if I could find the mystery spring... to no avail. Why not reassemble and test? There has to be something not working right due to this missing spring.

 

For the scratched up plastic, what I use on occasion is Polywatch in the small white tube. It says on the tube "made in Germany" so it has gotta be good right? Well, I thought it was mighty darn effective, put it that way. I used it on the Discman's D35 - and D-555 display windows to great effect.

The clear window on the Hitachi TRK 5190E cassette door looks badly scratched up too. It can be made new again with effort and planning. And practice. You may want to buy one of those small detailing polishing and buffing rotary tools. And check out other better polishing compound products. Chances are you have a lot of old hazy scratched up plastic that could benefit from full restorative polishing.

 

there is a possibility this spring was just floating around in there...why because it looks tiny and usually boxes from the 70's used much larger spring in there

 

i am going to partially assemble it and try it because iys a pain in the ass to get to the cassette deck assembly if you fully assemble it. the belts arrived so fingers crossed its working

 

ok update.....

fitted new belts tape plays just fine no wobbly sound or anything but i have a problem with the rewind and the fast forward. it runs for 1 second then it goes click click pop. the pop being the button popping up.

i guess i need to replace something else? i did clean everything as much as i could also sometimes fast forward would work other times it would be slow like its slipping or something

 

Maybe it is the idler tire slipping. Super common problem. Look for small rubber ring or washer on a plastic hub that moves when FF or RW are used and conveys rotation to the needed parts. It needs to be cleaned with Q-tip moistened with 70 alcohol. They say not to use 90%+ alcohol as it can dry out / damage the rubber. Once the dusty haze of old rubber is clean it should grip again and make the FF and RW work. Assuming this is the problem of course.

 

Well someone suggested to stretch the belts so i carefully did that without taking it apart and that worked. it rewinds and fast forwards fine and review works but cue doesnt really work so maybe still a problem. ive only got 99% ipa so i dont want to go cleaning anything else now.

next thing is to figure out how i can bluetooth mod it thats going to be a challenge because all i know so far is i will need to power the bluetooth module from the mainboard somehow and then i need to find out where i can hook the bluetooth up which ive no clue at all on that.