Hi. I bought this complete system today for $40 locally. I knew the deck would probably need TLC like new belts. As suspected, play, FF, and rewind does not work. I can see that the spidles want to work but don't budge. The good news are.... the drawer works pretty good and the mechanism engages good too. So my question is... has anyone ever attempted to replace the belts on this deck before? Was it relatively easy enough to do? Were the belts common types. I only tried doing this once on an older Yamaha tape many years ago with success, so I do have some minor skills LOL. Would like any comments or advice form you guys.
I would have a look in the service manual https://elektrotanya.com/sony_tc-v7_sm.pdf/download.html I have downloaded loads of manuals from elektrotanya. Note that it takes about a minute for the download link to appear. The HiFi Engine also has a copy but you have to sign up to the site.
Thanks, it's been a while since I was on HiFi engine... good idea, i forgot about them !! Never heard of elektrotanya... I'll try there first to see what's on there too.
Nice! Is there a component missing? It looks like something should be below the TT. That stand is really cool, AIWA was doing something similar, some of these systems went for decent money back then. I'm thinking that since the cassette deck slides, that the belt is nice and accessible on the bottom.
I was wondering if it is the correct turntable for the system. With a drawer loading cassette, you would think the correct turntable would also be drawer loading (one of Sony´s specialities). https://www.vinylengine.com/library/sony/ps-fl77.shtml Good luck in finding one of those for $40 though.
Thanks Mister X. The space is probably for the matching equalizer, which I will look for. I see them often enough on eBay and other means. I have an early CD player that will fit in there too. It doesn't have the cool soft touch pad controls. I will see about what you said about the belts being accessible from below?
Yes on that. I actually used to have both of those matching slide out TTs about 10 years ago. Should have kept them... I also had the ps-fs99 (Google pic of it below) which was the step up from the 77... I'm killing myself now for selling them. They both worked extremely well, so they were well made!
I also have a TC-V7 but it will be in deep storage so can not lay my hands on it or else I would investigate the easiness of belt replacement for you.
Sony had some really cool looking tape decks, not like most but the one on here is really cool looking, I've got an FH-100W, the buttons are on the doors and it has that added coolness as well.
Thanks Sony-Boy. If you ever do, let me know. I will probably take a stab at it some day soon. I bought a giant bad of belts from China, hope there will be a few that fits. I have 2 really cool Denon Cassematic-12 decks that work mechanically well, but the sound is not amazing. Perhaps a professional tune up is needed? You can see them sitting on the floor next to my Sony speaker. Below that is a video of it I uploaded to YouTube years ago.
Tape decks of this period will be easy to demagnetize with a mains operated demanetiser. You can also check and adjust the azimuth while the machine is running. All you do is play a tape with some soothing music through headphones and turn one of the screws by the playback head platform until the sound quality is at its best to you. If you can not get to the screw while a tape is playing (which may be the case with the Cassematic), you will have to take the chassis out of the casing but this will be no real problem as these are low tech units.
