This thread covers a different method of removing the plastic slider on SONY WM-DD walkmans, which is significantly less risky than the one presented in original tutorial. Decided to create this tutorial since I have read and heard about many cases of people breaking the slider in the attempt to remove it. Contrary to what the original tutorial says, I strongly recommend against compressing the claws of the slider from the cassette compartment side. This is the most likely scenario in which those claws will break as they're the weakest point. The removal process is as follows: 1. Tilt the PCB. 2. Remove the flywheel retainer and flywheel. 3. Remove STOP button. All the buttons can be removed at this point despite not showed in pictures. 4. Remove the cut washer and spring (spring not shown in pic as it's missing on this unit). 5. Open the carriage so the slider can stay at the very bottom. 6. Slide the slider all the way down and pull the top part up. 7. With the top part up, rotate the slider towards the center gear. Make sure the auto-stop lever gets out of the slider and rotate the slider to the left until it gets out. For re-installation, compress the bottom part with a 90-degree pair of tweezers as shown in the picture while pushing down. At every step be very careful to not apply a lot of force, as this is plastic and will easily break.
Thanks Valentin for these, work very well! If I may add, I have been using the same technique to put the sliders back just following instructions backwards, I find it more safe/secure than with the tweezers
