Panasonic RX5050 Tape Speed Issue

Hello, Im glad to apart of this forum, as I recently got back into the cassette game, and building my collections as we speak! I have a Panasonic RX-5050 which I've had for some years now and I love it to death..just recently I have noticed the tape deck has been playing tapes a lot slower than normal, and I am not sure if this is a belt issue a motor issue, or something a simple adjustment or cleaning may help, everything else on it seems to be fine..I tried searching on here but came up short, can anyone point me in the right direction, or give me some pointers on what to do? Thank you guys and glad to be on here!

Tommy

HI Tommy!

Welcome to the best forum on planet Earth!

I would replace the belts and do a good switch cleaning with Deoxit and see how it works. That would be the first thing to do since lots of other things can make it play slow.

@BoomboxLover48 thank you for the welcome! Im going to actually get it checked out soon, I found a good electronics dude that might be able to help..I will definitely keep posted on here with the results!

I am having the same problem. I replaced belts and did a good cleaning, but still slow. I read you can adjust the speed from the back of the motor?

There is some other issue that's causing the slow playback. The deck mechanics may need lubricating. It is 35 year old lube!

Adjusting the motor speed will correct the speed issue temporarily but I'd look further for a permanent solution.

Good point! Now that I have the player out I will lube the brass bearings and the mechanism. The grease looks pretty old and solid! I hate to change the motor adjustment until I have tried all of the simple things. It payed fine but within two days it started getting slower. That sounds like it might be a lubrication problem.
Thanks for the help!

I have recently found on my sharp GF9090 in working on, the the take up spool when turning with my finger had some slight resistance, whilst it would FF and at a speed i thought was okay playback was slightly slow, anyway i removed the spool and found old white grease on the spool shaft virtually solid, removed this and applied a little light oil refitted the spool now no resistance and to my surprise plays at the correct speed and FF is much stronger, checked the other spool same thing, so worth checking

sun209union said:

I have recently found on my sharp GF9090 in working on, the the take up spool when turning with my finger had some slight resistance, whilst it would FF and at a speed i thought was okay playback was slightly slow, anyway i removed the spool and found old white grease on the spool shaft virtually solid, removed this and applied a little light oil refitted the spool now no resistance and to my surprise plays at the correct speed and FF is much stronger, checked the other spool same thing, so worth checking

Click to expand...

Yes you are correct to remove any old hardened grease but you need to replace it with lithium grease as oil will eventually dry up and can also spray other parts such as rubber like belts and pinch roller and will also cause issues.

baddboybill said:

I have recently found on my sharp GF9090 in working on, the the take up spool when turning with my finger had some slight resistance, whilst it would FF and at a speed i thought was okay playback was slightly slow, anyway i removed the spool and found old white grease on the spool shaft virtually solid, removed this and applied a little light oil refitted the spool now no resistance and to my surprise plays at the correct speed and FF is much stronger, checked the other spool same thing, so worth checking

Click to expand...

Yes you are correct to remove any old hardened grease but you need to replace it with lithium grease as oil will eventually dry up and can also spray other parts such as rubber like belts and pinch roller and will also cause issues.

Click to expand...

yes I used WD40 lithium white grease I was told its fine but yes keep it well away from rubber belts etc,,, hope this is the right thing to use wasn't sure?

Lubricate brass bearings on the motor itself

toshik said:

Lubricate brass bearings on the motor itself

Click to expand...

how do you lubricate the bearings on the motor do you have to strip the motor apart? what is the right lubricant to do this

2 holes on the ends of motor case where you can see the shaft, on one side the shaft extends with the pulley driving the belt.

sun209union said:

I have recently found on my sharp GF9090 in working on, the the take up spool when turning with my finger had some slight resistance, whilst it would FF and at a speed i thought was okay playback was slightly slow, anyway i removed the spool and found old white grease on the spool shaft virtually solid, removed this and applied a little light oil refitted the spool now no resistance and to my surprise plays at the correct speed and FF is much stronger, checked the other spool same thing, so worth checking

Click to expand...

Yes you are correct to remove any old hardened grease but you need to replace it with lithium grease as oil will eventually dry up and can also spray other parts such as rubber like belts and pinch roller and will also cause issues.

Click to expand...

yes I used WD40 lithium white grease I was told its fine but yes keep it well away from rubber belts etc,,, hope this is the right thing to use wasn't sure?
Me personally I would rather use regular lithium grease instead of spray on. Not sure if spray would be a problem or not, but there probably is less control of amount and area being sprayed.

Do not use spray! Small drop on each side of synthetic watch oil does the trick.

thanks toshik & bill didn't realise this, I will not use sprays again, cheers guys