Help diagnosing a sick Bombeat please ?

Hey all, I was going to put this is the Toshiba section but there isn't a huge amount of posting in there so I hope it's OK to post out here in the main area. What I need help with is probably not unique to Toshiba anyway lol.....

Basically, I got myself a Bombeat DM-02 (RT-S653) recently and after replacing the belts it still will not play cassettes. My main issue is that the heads do not descend when the capstan runs, although they can be manually pushed down and sound can be heard. The heads do not lock into position either and the pinch roller doesn't get close enough to the capstan to make contact with the tape. The playback sound is basically just the takeup reel dragging the tape right through without help from the capstan.

I'm a bit of a noob with semi-auto decks, although I have repaired a few hifi decks that operate in a similar manner with great success. I am aware of the need to rotate the mechanism by hand after repair on some decks, as the failure can often cause the heads to remain in the play position or to not descend from the rest position. So far, I have observed that when the PLAY button is pressed, it operates a leaf switch which presumably tells the motor to run. This should then rotate the flywheel which in turn should engage with the head mechanism and bring it down, but it does not. I pulled the capstan / flywheel out and checked the visible gears - no stripped teeth that I could see. If I mess around with rotating the flywheel by hand, it will under certain circumstances pull the heads down - they do not lock or click into place though and the pinch is still too far from the capstan to achieve proper drive.

One other odd behaviour is the FF - when powered, the deck will REW fine but if I engage FF it runs very very briefly and then stops - almost like it's hitting an imaginary auto-stop (this is all with no cassette in place)

Does anyone have any thoughts on this at all, maybe I've missed a simple step to get the mechanism synced up properly. One thing worth a mention is I had to guess at the belts because I couldn't find a listing for the RT-S653 so I based my belt purchase on the RT-S651 which looks very similar.

Firstly, almost all decks will shut down when FF is run with no cassette inserted. I won't bother with a long explanation but it's pretty normal. And yes, also pretty common for RW under same conditions NOT to trigger autustop. Try the same with a cassette in the chamber and I think you'll find that FF will no longer stop until end of tape.

Now, as to the head issue, I've no personal knowledge of this model or its deck, but in general, it's not the flywheel that will actuate the heads but rather a different gear or lever that may be driven by the flywheel either through a gear or belt. If so, then you'll have to investigate whether the gear or pulley is slipping or properly meshed, or whether the belt is slipping. That the belt is new does not preclude possible slippage, especially if the wrong belt is installed or if it was contaminated during installation, or if the mechanism is tighter than normal from being gummed up from dried grease, tarred from old belts, or what have you. If there's no head action at all upon play, then there's even a possibility that you are missing a belt or misrouted the belts. With the old belts tarred and gone, it's sometimes quite possible, easy even, to misread how the belts should be routed.

Well I think I figured it out. Sort of. The deck is broken ! Hah that sounds obvious eh ? You are quite right about the heads, they are drawn down by mechanism which is acted on by the flywheel and gears. It seems from close inspection that the gear which meshes with the flywheel gear maybe missing its first tooth or maybe two. Its just enough to prevent automatic re-engagement when doing a play-stop-play action.

As the gear in question is no doubt unique to this range and buried within the mechanism I think I am going to abandon this repair and move on. Still got nice sounding radio though and it looks sweet