FIRST OF ALL I WILL NOT OPEN UNLESS GUIDED THROUGH OPENING IT PROPERLY AS I'M AFRAID OF WORSENING THE PROBLEM AND I CAN'T REMOVE THE TAPE FUNCTION BUTTONS WITHOUT DAMAGING THEM.

The Fast forward and rewind just suddenly stopped working in tape 2. The power light comes on and play and record work fine.

The symptom... When cassette tape is removed wheel moves very weak on rewind, nothing moves on F FWD, but with tape in it doesn't F FWD, or REWIND.

I did hear something rattling around in it and when I opened the cassette door and turned the unit upside down this popped out:

It looks like wheel that holds a belt which scares me. As you can see in the pic, It has some sort of glue caked around the center hole.

I just had it fixed. According to the repair invoice all belts had been replaced, idler drive assembled and retainer installed. No problems until just now.

Please help this is an absolute heartache! 

I may be wrong, but, it look`s like the idler, for FF/RW. Has it got rubber, round the rim?

I would take this back, to where you had it fixed, and complain. Very shoddy.

Thanks for the reply, Litfan.

No rubber around the rim just a groove like for a belt.

It looks like I just might have to send it back to PA again Monday morning. I had it repaired at Bucks County Electronics btw.

-Jenna

I figured out what it was and how to fix it.  

Luckily I was able to properly remove the buttons without damaging the chrome enamel:

The thing in my hand was the very thing the purple arrow in the image below is pointing at. There is a tension spring between the washer and the little white plastic tip that holds every thing together. I added a teeny tiny dab of krazy glue to the plastic tips of both decks with an old brush. to reinforce them better. 

All the pieces were stuck inside the box and was able to retrieve them and figure out where it goes how it was assembled simply by observing deck 1. I also studied how everything works so I can fix any problems in the future although I'm not even sure what some of these parts are even called. My first fix! No more paying repair men.

Here it is all fixed up and playing a tape:

You are getting good in this! How cool is it to fix your own boxes! Congrats! 

Well done jenna. I`m proud of you. To say, you did that, off the bat, amazing work.

well done too-youll get even more confidence as you go along in this hobby,in the beginning (seems like such a long time ago now)i was nervous and unsure about doing damage rather than repair,but ive learnt the golden rule from the master (yoda docs dave)that the best way to learn how to repair things is attempt it yourself and slowly learn yourself how to do it and eventually you will have bags of confidenceplus its great when you fix something yourself and see it completely working again-congrats

Well done

Great Job!

Saved some big $$ and learned to repair it for the future.. =WIN

Thanks guys, but unfortunately today I have some bad news...

Tape 1 is acting really quirky. You see, when I press play it just spins with no power light fast and nothing comes out, but when I press play on both decks at the same time, or ff rew it works. Tape two just plays when I try to record. This is a problem I can't figure out by looking at the moment because all the mechanisms are perfect. I think the problem might be electrical this time.