Hello, As in the title, it plays fine, it's not an electrical issue because the motor gets turned on when I press either ff or rewind, purely mechanical. I noticed one thing about it - the idler tire close to the flywheel doesn't seem to do anything? Is it supposed to touch the flywheel when the unit is in rewind/ff? Right now it doesn't serve any function. I marked the wheel I'm concerned about.
The idler wheel you have marked should touch the flywheel when the unit is in FF or REW. It will drive the white cogged wheel next to it, which drives the smaller white cogged wheel shown below it. The smaller cogged wheel will engage to drive the supply side spool or the take up spool, depending on whether the walkman is in FF or REW. If the wheels are not moving then the grease has probably gone hard and set like glue. I have seen this happen on a few D6Cs. You will need to remove the idler and two cogged wheels and clean them. Then lubricate them with a little silicone grease (not mineral oil grease which will attack the plastic) and re-fit. Also check the white cogged wheels around the autostop mechanism and take up spool drive as these often suffer from hard grease too.
Hi, I did that now, without any change. From what you've said, the idler is supposed to engage and touch the flywheel. It's not engaging at all, it's never touching the flywheel. The gears themselves all rotate smoothly and easily.
Thanks to the help of tpknguyen09, I was able to figure it out. The arm underneath that idler wheel was completely stuck due to old grease and it being bent downwards. After straightening it and removing old grease, both rewind and ff is working perfectly now.
I'm glad to hear that you've got it working OK. Earlier, I took some photos of the mechanism on a D6. I'll upload them anyway for future reference. Stopped FF engaged REW engaged
Hello guys! I think I have the same problem but I don't understand how to remove and clean idler wheel and I afraid to break some parts because I don't have fixing experience. Could you please explain me how to do it?! P.S. Here is link to video that show what happened with my D6C:
@ilya_23 If you're not confident about this repair, I suggest not doing it. Depending on how stuck this parts gets, it may require a lot of persuasion and force ot get it unstuck, potentially bending the gearbox plate (you will need to remove it from the unit to bend it back to the original position). I took some additional pictures on a unit that I have repaired with this problem, to illustrate the situation in more detail. What happens is the small lever (the one holding the rubber tire) gets stuck onto its shaft. The shaft also rotates from the bottom, as there's a second lever that mover the small gear that drives the table reel. What may happen is: you put oil under the lever, move it around and at some point think that the job is done, as it will seem it moves completely free (in STOP mode). However, when you put the unit into FF/REW you will notice, the lever does not move low enough (and the tire still does not come into contact with the flywheel). When you will try to move it by hand, you'll see that it does not move free under the action of the spring. This is because the lever and its shaft move as an assembly and that assembly will have a lateral force on it, preventing it from moving freely (details in picture). To solve the problem, the lever needs to be removed, cleaned of hardened grease and lubricated with a thin oil. For doing this, I use a pair of pliers on which I stick some electrical tape in order to avoid scratching the lever. The green and blue arrows indicated what needs to be removed in order to take the gearbox out. Depending on the severity of the problem, that may or may not be necessary. The big FF/REW lever coming from the buttons also needs to be slided out, but that's pretty straight-forward, so not shown in the picture. NOTE: This problem appears on other walkmans sharing similar mechanism: TPS-L2, WM-3, TCM-600, etc.
This is great information, Have a question about removing the caps on the gears that a not C-rings. Do they just pry off? Afraid to push too hard. I have exactly the problem you have discussed here but can't get the gears off to clean and lubricate. Thanks. Hale
@Lanny Hale The washers that are not cut can be removed in 2 ways: 1. Cut one side of it with a scalpel or x-acto knife. Be careful and do the cut with multiple passes, as some of these washers are thicker; 2. Pry it from both sides, but be very careful it will likely fly out; also note the middle part which grips onto the shaft will get deformed inwards if you use this method;
Thanks. I got the retainers off the white gear closest to the idler tire but there seems to be a bushing or another type of ?brass retainer that won't allow me to pry the gear off. Any instructions for this? I really appreciate your help. My WM-D6C is like new and I really want to repair it. Do you fix these if I decide to give up? Thanks again.
The white gear next to the idler tire is held in place with a C clip, not a washer. I marked another 3 C clips which can be better seen for reference as how one looks like. Those need to be pried with a small flat head screwdriver: you can put the head of the screwdrive in one of the 2 gaps and rotate while holding the clip with a fingernail. Of course, it is to be mentioned for having decent space, the flywheel and motor should be removed at this point. And be very careful keeping a fingernail on that C clip, cause it can fly out. You can also put some tape over one side of it, so you still have room to pry it out, but it won't fly. Also note there are 2 anti-friction washers (black) on that white gear: one is below the C clip, one is on the back side. The one on the back side usually remains in place, but the one above can be lost if one does not pay attention to it. As for fixing, I do fix walkmans. However, on a unit like this it is recommended to do a complete service: replace rubber, lubricate all rotating parts in mechanism, make electronic adjustments. For more details, send me a private message.
