First boombox since the 80s for me

[Fowler1969]

last weekend on a whim bid and won this Toshiba rt-170 boombox from a local auction house
knowing previous purchases of electrical items should have guessed it might not be working but for £25 took the plunge.
tried batteries first as safer than plugging in and radio worked fine but cassette no power.
Presumed it could be belt related and following a guide on YouTube took the thing apart and discovered a very disintegrated black melted rubber
which with much cleaning with cotton buds and ispropyl cleaned off. Then cleaned the heads and capstan and went in search on eBay for a belt.
Dissembling the back plate to get to the flywheels was akward but achieved and new belt fitted hopefully I’d done it right.
Imagine my joy when not only did it work but in all directions of the auto reverse. I cleaned the volume and tone controls and at first the right hand speaker was weaker but after a short while was as strong as the left.
Never really repaired/worked on so like this before so kind of pleased with my efforts.
Fully working and sounding great

 

[Tinman]

That belt goo is a pain.
Congrats on getting it working and welcome.

 

[goodman]

to forum and congrats for your restoration job.

 

[Northerner]

Well done on jumping straight in with fixing one, once you’ve done one the rest get easier and easier! I started the same way, bought the same model I had as a kid on a whim. I’ve restored hundreds since then lol

 

[dubout]

The reason why one speaker wasn't at full volume might be the usual record bar problem. I don't see the need to take the box apart again for cleaning but you might want to hit record multiple (read: 10 to 20) times to be safe.

Here is a thread with further explanation:

Record Switch Bar Example

A few boombox problems are caused by a dirty, or faulty, record switch / bar. Most of the times, the primary symptom is a high-pitched squeal when playing cassettes. Thorough cleaning with DeOxit or some other electronics cleaner will generally be the simple fix. Here is an example of what a...

www.boomboxery.com

And congrats on the trouble shooting! Looks like a new collector is in the making