Bought last week for just £25.00 this was my third SR-8800 in 5 years or so.............they turned up so hopelessly damaged or "Got at" by cowboy repair tech folk that they were left sitting in my spares cupboard with me thinking they really weren't worth the trouble!!
Last week's machine though arrived well packed & in pretty much perfect condition & never opened up either which was great to discover!
The usual no tape deck problems was the case although unbelievably, the playback deck worked fine......I wasn't expecting that at all.........radio & line in were also fine after squirting the sliders & pots with Servisol!
Now, to the dreaded repair:
I am already terrified by these machines, they are built to an excellent standard, however they are complex & very difficult to take apart & removing the main cassette deck without damaging anything is a real nightmare & definitely not for the novice or anyone learning to repair tape decks - Even out of the case, the decks belts were goo & it was everywhere :O It took a day for me to completely remove it all........
So, what do we have?.........We have a really nice solid soft touch deck mechanism built to last no question - We have lots of crud & dirt along with seized up eject & autostop metal operating plates/sliders & we have a seized solid motor due to crud stuck to motor shaft
In essence, the deck would have been relatively easy for me to repair if it wasn't for these caveats adding themselves to what was already a huge job for me due to the illness etc!
I always wanted one of these as man & boy, trouble was, as stated earlier, they are always non functioning - If they were easy to fix then there may well be more minty ones left out there, I doubt there are many who would take one of these on in a hurry I have to say.........
So we are now up to yesterday, the goo all gone & the motor opened up cleaned & oiled so it spun freely! Time to work out the belt arrangement as I hadn't a clue..........I had a saved image from the internet a long time ago which told me that one flat & two very small square belts drive the whole ensemble & they are quite tricky to get all of them on at the same time!!
Once done & hand operated, all functions seemed to be working so time to get it back into the case.............this didn't actually take too long, it's just getting the mech back underneath the main board - I must say I was sceptical about the chance of it actually working...........remember, I had yet to see & hear one of these working :O
I cut my hand & forearm nicely whilst putting it all back together
Time to run it up with headphones before going any further - Everything working first time! Wow, just a horrible humming sound when on tape playback mode!! It turned out to be a fractured earth wire from cassette mechanism, I cut it out & made up a new wire & ran it to the chassis metal & the power supply/power amplifier module - Result, complete silence when deck run up
Finally, one antenna replaced & one antenna clip replaced before screwing it all back together..........
Result??
Very possibly my favourite stereo, this thing is simply awesome & what a stunning cassette deck this is........stable & a dynamic range rarely found on portable cassette machines!! Love this thing
Of course, the beautiful Led bars came to life which I have never seen before working on one of these........
Am tired of typing now so the images & video's can do the talking!
Enjoy this stunner, it really is something special
Et Viola!!
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https://youtu.be/LqYqI-CFuDM
https://youtu.be/P0jW6WaHbuM
https://youtu.be/aSVP-6tl6HI
Red level meters looks very good! 
