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VCR won't fully rewind tapes

My RCA model VR704HF VCR started exhibiting the following symptom:

It won't rewind a tape all the way to the beginning. It stops when there's still roughly a half hour of tape to go. Pressing Rewind causes it to rewind a little bit more but it still stops before it gets all the way back to the beginning.

I'm also starting to hear a high-pitched tone in all tape transport modes (playback, rewind, etc.) that I didn't used to hear, but I don't know if that's related.

What's the most likely cause? And are there any suppliers left who stock parts for a machine this old (1990s vintage)?

--
Steven L.
Email:  sdlitvin@earthlinkNOSPAM.net
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Reply to
Steven L.
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A worn tired rubber belt (if it has any).

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Reply to
Sam Goldwasser

Or a worn tired idler wheel (usually located on a swinging arm between the supply and take-up spools). Either should probably still be available as 'pattern' parts. Try looking for a 'service kit' for that model.

The other possibility is a worn lower drum assembly, if the tape remains wrapped during wind / rewind operations with that model. With this arrangement, there is considerable frictional wear produced on the aluminium alloy lower head drum, which over the years causes the friction between the tape and the drum to increase. This manifests itself as high drag in the rewind mode, when the tape is having to move backwards against the direction of rotation of the upper head drum, and often results in the tape coming to a complete stop, which is then sensed by the reel rotation sensors, causing the rewind operation to be aborted early. This condition is often accompanied by a squeal as you describe. This is an impractical problem to fix, as the lower head drum is probably no longer available, and even if it was, would almost certainly be prohibitively expensive compared to the value of the machine.

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily

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