I bought this a few years ago at a yard sale for less than a fiver. Needed new belts which I had on hand. This was not a well-made box and while I was able to get it running, I never could get the auto-stop to work - until this last week when it started chewing on tapes and I was forced to have another go at fixing it...
The mechanicals are pretty much all plastic...
...with a few bits of metal - the flywheels not being one (or two) of them.
The problem turned out to be the idlers and their tires, I was able to flip them around to their still-good inner sides. They're fairly easy to pluck from the chassis. I also roughed up the point on the drive they come in contact with.
Putting the thing back together I found 'nubbins' on the tuner dial that helped in aligning the needle. I had also taken time to adjust to motor speed to a known to be good deck using a pair of tapes with the SMPTE tone recorded onto them.
All back together and the wee beastie is good for another few years at least...
Obviously this isn't much of a blasteur de ghetteaux, but it's the first one I'd been able to find in this century...
The mechanicals are pretty much all plastic...
...with a few bits of metal - the flywheels not being one (or two) of them.
The problem turned out to be the idlers and their tires, I was able to flip them around to their still-good inner sides. They're fairly easy to pluck from the chassis. I also roughed up the point on the drive they come in contact with.
Putting the thing back together I found 'nubbins' on the tuner dial that helped in aligning the needle. I had also taken time to adjust to motor speed to a known to be good deck using a pair of tapes with the SMPTE tone recorded onto them.
All back together and the wee beastie is good for another few years at least...
Obviously this isn't much of a blasteur de ghetteaux, but it's the first one I'd been able to find in this century...
