This is exactly what I need...I picked up an old Zenith 8 track and am having trouble with it. You completely disassembling this one is really helping me understand how these things work!! Thank you!
They were still using 8-tracks well into the 80's believe it or not- I had a 1982 Cadillac Eldorado that had a factory 8-Track player in it, so when going to the record store I would always go to the 8-Track section which slowly dwindled every year and became smaller and smaller- I'm always the LAST one to accept new technology hahaha, after 8-Track I went to cassettes because I had an adapter that you could play cassette tapes in an 8-track player, and I still have the cases of my 8-track tapes and my cassette tapes!! I also still own a console record player and still play my record collection!! I still play CD's in the car when everyone else has gone to digital files!! When it comes to movies I only switched to DVD when the rental stores were unable to get VHS anymore, then over the years I amassed a huge dvd collection and now the stores are starting to carry less and less DVD's because everyone is going to digital streaming. But what about all the money I spent on records, 8-tracks, cassettes, vhs tapes, dvd's, blu-rays, etc... they still work fine so I keep on using them!!
This is one of the coolest videos I have seen on your channel. All your videos are great. I was born in 1975, so when I was a teenager, we had a 1977 Chevy truck that had the original 8-track stereo, and it worked too, and we had a 8-track to cassette adapter. Very cool. I love retro stuff. Thanks for making and sharing this video. Have a great day.
I always like watching you work on this old stuff. It makes things mechanical seem at least a bit less intimidating and more approachable to us young'uns (well, more like youngish'uns).
I kept looking at videos that said they described how 8 tracks work, but they didn't, they were talking about something else. You finally showed me. Thanks.
Thanks for bringing this old 8 track to your bench, it brings a lot of old memories! I worked on a few of these back in the day before cassettes caught on.
The adhesive thats holds the ends of the tape together at the metal foil point like to fail, resulting in a pile of tape in the machine. Guess how I learned this! Yep, it happened to the first 8 track I got. Delightful... Thankfully 8 track tape is thicker then cassette tape, so it wasn’t _too_ horrible to fix.
Nice trip down Memory Lane. Those plastic head brackets/holders broke much too easily. The earlier ones with all metal construction were better by far. That looks to be an old Toshiba mechanism, same as in my Amerex 8 - track / receiver, still working after nearly 50 years. You're right about keeping old dead chassis or sets, many's the time they've got me out of the poo. The format appears to be still popular, only today our mailman was astonished and interested to see the old Amerex running. I use draught foam tape to renew the old gungy foam, and put a very small spot of oil on the boss of the spool too.
I use graphite on the pinch roller bearing and the spool bearing as you don't want oil gumming up the tape. Most 8 track tape is back coated with a graphite substance to help the tape flow through the cartridge.
Thanks. I kinda knew what you were doing on the 8 Track player & tapes. I worked on my own in the mid to late 70's in my teen years mostly by trial & error mind you. I got a bunch of them going again.
Ahh the good old players, that one looks clean inside. Shame the head died, lucky you had a compatable one :-D I fixed a car version for a mate (audiovox c-902), the head mech was locked up solid, so a dissasemble and clean up sorted that. And one channel was dead, the final p.a transistors (2sc1096, 2sa634) were toast, lucky i had some :-D
That Zamir logo has the most funky typeface and I like it! I have a few of these 8track home decks laying around, I think they’re more or less all alike, for the skinny add a tape player style as we see here
I still have a few 4 track tapes, remember those? I was fixing 8 track tapes and repairing blown output transistors in car under dash players for guys in high school. Now I am showing my age....
Last week, I picked three 8track recorders off the curb, A Pioneer, an Electrophonic, and a Superscope. They all worked fine. I donated the Pioneer and Electrophonic to Good Will so someone else can enjoy the "treasures". But the Superscope is a keeper. I also have my Sony. They will be in my upcoming hodge podge 32. And I found a Dakorder dubber reeler that um getting rid of, don't like it. I think that it needs motor run caps, it's a four motor deck, take up motor seems weak. I might sell it and my Sony 10" RtR at the flea market, or Craig's List, and hopefully pocket 100$. Too heavy for postage. That guy also threw away a GE battery 8track player that went byebye to GW too. The curb finds will be in my next h p 32. Don
Trip down memory lane 8 track I mostly had 45 and 33 record I remember a Panasonic 8 track player that I brokers from a friend it had grand funk railroad
Were there ever chrome or metal 8 track tapes or did that not come along until cassettes had taken over? I remember those when I was young (I'm as old as that tape is), and I remember them having next to no high end at all, very muddy sounding which is maybe partly why they died off? If you put a really well recorded cassette in that adapter, was the deck capable of putting out good sound or were they not built that well knowing the tape they were used with wasn't capable of much high end? Is there anything to see if you busted open the old head? I've never seen inside one to understand how they work.
I have two Sony players & a recording deck. One of the former has a speed/flutter problem. It was sent out for repair, which included "flocking" the capstan & aligning the head. Came back, it worked fine for about 3 months, then the original problem reappeared. Was told that the motor might've needed replacement (due to a mechanical governor issue). My thought was the swap motors between the decks.
Right I forgot about those motors with the mechanical speed governor. For those unaware, there is a pair of weights inside the motor that are held back by a spring. When the motor gets to a certain speed centrifugal force throws the weights out and applies a slight braking action to keep the motor running at that speed.
I have a JVC Nivico 8-Track deck that produces a random static- like sound when the tape sensor is enabled. Some tapes play fine, and others have this but play fine in other decks. Any ideas as to what’s going on?
Why didn't you check the tape speed? That is the whole point of have a known pitch tone recorded on the tape. That 2khz tone is recorded for that purpose.
Here is a perfect example of why an electronic servicing business should always have an extensive array of scrapped electronic devices, that can be picked over for parts. Nothing should ever be chucked out, because, you just never know when it will be useful.
@@channelsixtysix066 are you kidding. I have several vintage audio systems set up and I am pushing the limits now. I have a 24 x 35 storage unit where I keep the crap that isn't in the garage. I should move the crap from the garage out to storage. Actually mist of the crap in the garage is boxes for stuff people have sent me and after they get it fixed never pay to have it shipped back. I would say 50% of stuff shipped in ends up being more wrong that the owner wants to spend and they abandon it.
Dave, Thanks for showing this 8 track overhaul. I've got a couple of these players as well. I've got to wonder why some rubber belts melt and others that are decades old appear to be as good as the day they were made. Even though the belt seems to be working well, do you think this belt would benefit from the boiling water method of belt rejuvenation? The only other thing I would add to this is to say, from my experience, the adhesive that holds the metallic sensing foil dries out causing the foil to drop off at the tape splice. The only way I've figured out how to fix this without taking the tape shell apart is to pull the tape out of the tape player exactly when the tape changes tracks. The sensing foil is right there where you can examine it to see if it's still good. Or replace it if it's bad. Regards, Tom
Yes the splice sometimes lets go. I have a pack of splices to fix them when they go. These ones are still ok. Different belt material affects life. Natural rubber oxidizes. Synthetic doesn't, or is it the other way around.
Yes, but you'd need a quadraphonic RtR to play it. Or bulk erase the 8track tape, and record over it. The reels don't fit the hub of a RtR recorder, so you'd have to wind the tape to a 3" reel. They're not very long, so you'd splice a bunch onto a reel.
Fivos Sakellis The tape is physically the same width but cart tape has a graphite lubricant. The tracks are laid out differently so if you tried to play an 8 track tape on a 4 track machine you would hear 2 programs at the same time as 4 track heads would cover 2 of the 8 tracks. You could record on a 4 track reel to reel but only programs 1 and 3 I believe would have separate material. So 1-2 would have the same and 3-4 would duplicate.
It is the same width, but no, you can't play in on an ordinary four track or stereo reel-to-reel. Likewise the lubricant might make trouble too. The 8 - track cartridges ran at 3 3/4 inches per second, commonly found on home reel-to-reels, but the track spacing/direction meant they wouldn't play. I believe AKAI made a machine that'd play and record on both formats, but they're as rare as a truthful polichicken now :-)
I just got a fleetwood solid state radio/record player/8 track player but the 8 track player doesn’t seem to work, do you have any suggestions or a video I could watch to get it going again? Thanks
Those decks were pretty reliable. They only needed a crosstalk and azimuth adjustment after thousands of hours of play. Belts stretched out and needed replacement
Carlo D'Anna Yes they are. I have both a recorder and now a player. I will be doing another one on the recorder soon and actually recording something with it.
1khz is pretty useless for azimuth adjustments. More for track position, level checks, speed checks, and maybe flutter, though 3khz is better for that. Test frequencies for azimuth were commonly 7khz for film setup and 10khz for cassette.
You should be able to find them for next to nothing is not free. I scored this one at the side of the road along with a nice old Philips AM/FM record changer console. The BSR turntable is seized tighter than a drum, so that will be made to work again.
12voltvids I should go hunting for an 8teack player or recorder, but here in Toronto it's hard to come by as a freebie, usually the metal scrapers tend to scrape up anything they can find, but I'm sure I can find it if I keep my eyes open. You make the repairs look pretty easy, but i know you have way more experience than your audience realize, I look forward to seeing the console and turntable video.
I run ads on craigslist looking for old audio / video equipment that people want rid of. I get so many things for free, people want rid of them. Some work, most require minor work, which I turn into videos. I got this free, and a console stereo with a seized up BSR turntable which will be a video in the next day or so. I got the Noresco amp with the dual turn table, the Teac, Sony and Grundig reel to reel free. All I had to do was go pick them up. Most people that don't want things look for somoen wanting them before they scrap. My goal is to restore vintage audio equipment, and put it into my collection. With technology changing so fast the younger generations won't know what we had to deal with. My daughter just today saw her first 8 track player and 8 track tape and had no idea what to make of it. She is 20 and grew up with cell phones, and is starting to get into vinyl now. For that matter she has the Dual / Noresco unit that I just fixed up. I told her she could "borrow" it but I want it back if she decides she doesn't want it anymore.
Not much on the curb these days, stuff gets snatched up quickly by those dam scrappers sad to day. I got a bunch last week, that I rescued from scrapping. I hope to post a vid this week, Hodge Podge 32. Sub and watch for it. As for good name brands, Pioneer, Akai, Sony/Superscope, and Panasonic/Technic are the best 8tarck recorders, and usually don't come cheap. But Soundesign, Magnavox, Electrophonic, Kraco, GE, Realistic, Sears, Pencrest, RCA, Zenith, Juliette, Lloyds, oh there are so many, that are still common and cheap, often less than 10$ at junk sores. If you see one cheap, grab it, don't worry about brand name, most are OK, and need clean/lube, and perhaps a BELT. They are very simple to fix up for the most part. I've had a couple with sticky track selecters too. Panasonic and Soundesign were very common for boombox style portable payers, if you're searching by brand name at reasonable cost.
HI made a test tape with my fostex a8 why i did find the 8 track recorders don't work well as the head is fixed very well in the fostex A8 and just move the loop tape the the 8 track computer can deal with the speed of the tape it can make me a right audio file
Hello I have a question. I have a player like the one you used the head off of. I Cleaned the cap stand, cleaned the head, and still no audio. I can see the tape being pulled across the head but still no sound . I tested the head and It tested good but still no audio. Any ideas?? Would a bad potentiometer be the culprit??
Lucky you had a spare head lying around , otherwise it was a boat anchor....or more spare parts for your stash....another problem with the cheap players .... either the tape case or player itself would have play in it and the tape would have to be wedged in a certain way to not cross talk between tracks
No. "Vinyl" made a comeback (though it never went away completely) because it's such a high quality format, capable of sound quality on par with CDs. 8-track was a terrible format. In addition to the poor sound quality, the tapes were big and bulky and there was no way to go directly to the song you wanted to hear. The only consumer analog audio tape format that was really good (on par with records and CDs) was reel-to-reel. Compact cassette could be pretty good with "metal" tapes and a high-end cassette deck, but the main reason for its popularity was the convenience of the small cassettes.
It's easy to say no cos of the logistics, but never say never. I'm a big fan of cassettes (and still have all my old tapes) and I didn't expect them to come back around. So who knows...8 tracks may find a nostalgia nitch somewhere and come back even if it's just a temporary retro phase. Personally I'm hoping they do make a comeback. And with what we know today about the handicaps of 8 tracks and players, we can make em better and less prone to malfunction.
@@jasonw6688 Absolutely. I still have all my old cassette tapes as well & I gave away my 8-track player with a box full of 8-track cassettes to my brother years ago!
@@MsCori76 I got an 8 track stereo from my wife's grandma last week so I'll be working on that when the belt comes in the mail. I got a few 8 tracks as well that I've never been able to play so hopefully I can get this player up and running. I've been watching vids on RU-vid - such as this one - and learning a lot about the components, what they do, and how to clean/work on them. My father-in-law is gonna be repairing his as well so I've been sending him these videos. lol I can also play my tapes; for Christmas, my wife got me an AM/FM-cassette boombox w usb ports and bluetooth.
@@jasonw6688 Cool, that’s sounds great. I’ve got a old Realistic twin cassette deck that stills plays tapes good. I’ve only had to replace the belts in it. It just simply plugs into my Pioneer unit because the tapes decks in that need attention. LOL another project to sort out one day.
It's funny to think when 8-track players came out and then they were Obsolete and cassette tape players came out people are dying to get cassette tapes and their cars so the manufacturers made them a 8-track to cassette tape adapter. Now people who have cassette tapes in their cars are dying to get their cell phones with the internet music on them on their car radio. Now they have ones that are Bluetooth cassette tapes where they put a battery and a bluetooth computer chip into the cassette tape and you put it into the cassette tape player and then connect your phone to it. Or cassette aux tape it's a aux cassette tape basically just a wire coming out of the tape where you hook into your phone a 3.5 mm aux cord. Those are more widely used now than the Bluetooth tapes but they do make them Bluetooth cassette tapes and aux cord cassette tapes. Funny to think how technology evolved but they still want you using the old technology so they make adapters on them until the adapters become obsolete. Look at the hill TV but they still TV converter box for your TV signal.
8 track player repair! Yes. Dave, how would you go about repairing an 8 track player if it is skipping channels? Instead of klunking all by itself continuously at 1,2,3,4......1,2,3,4 it would change tracks at 1,3, or 2 ,4. Do you know what the reason is for this fault and what you can do to repair it? One of my old 8 track player has this fault.
You will have to look at the mechanism and see what it is doing. The solenoid should pulse, and then the mechanism kick once. Some machines were 2/4 channel players. The 4 channel players would go from track 1-3 or 2-4 as in quad you are using 4 channels at once, and thus only had 2 programs. The 8 track quad machines generally had a switch to put them in stereo or quad mode.
You can get up to about 15-16kHz with the high-end decks (Wollensak 8075, Pioneer H-R100, Akai's). You should expect better than 12kHz with most "better" decks. These simple playback-only decks can be a crap-shoot sound quality wise.
They actually sold them. Believe it of not there are collectors of these things. I know this because I asked, and one oft the staffers said someone took them all, and I should check back in a few weeks and see if any more came in.
I own this exact Ima PS 1000 with an 8 track player and it needs to be restored. It was my uncles before he passed away: picclick.com/IMA-Clock-AM-FM-Radio-with-8-Track-Player-132456121981.html the switches and pots on it are very dirty and need to be cleaned, at least one wire inside to to be replaced since its just twisted together the strip for the antenna commections is loose and needs to be replaced or reattached some how. belts in ir seem to be ok since it does play a tape ut ot sure if its at the correct speed or not. One more thing I dont have anyone around me that could restore it.
8-track tape is dead. I died out years ago. To my knowledge, there's nobody making them in the world. When Q8 died out, so did my use for 8-track. I went to cassettes for good.😂
Of course it is dead. Its only around for collectors. Saying that, I recently (as in the last year) sold an old 8 track player for 100.00, so it might be dead but there are collectors out there that collect this old equipment for nostalgia reasons.
Why on every repair video they have to begin with the long history of the object of the thing you're trying to fix in the first place? I know what an 8 track player is, I know it's from the 60s, I know they're obsolete now. Mine is broken that's why I came here. If I take it to a repairman and he's like Hello, the 8 track player came out in 1965 and etc. I would think he's fucking nuts and leave, which is why I don't continue to watch repair videos that start out like that.
Because not everyone watching is as smart as you and knows this. There are many that have never seen an 8 track tape and have no idea what it is and like to know the history that's why. Believe it or not i do read the comments and when commenters say they like to know a little about a device i educate them. Don't like the preamble then just skip forward. Same as people like to hear the stories from the service days and about different problems that happened with certain equipment. I wouldn't talk about common faults are stuff if it wasn't requested.
I sold so many players and recorders on EBay. That one is not worth much because it is a no name. The issue is that usually you need a belt and cleaning so you have 5 bucks in and often the head retainer is broken but yours is metal. So after all that, I would get 20 bucks for a player like that. had it had a realistic name on it, $40. If it had more features like record and Dolby, over $100. Don't get me wrong, a no name is probably the same as a name brand in quality but not for resale. I agree about the parts thing and I never had a bad head.
Glad you fixed it, very basic stuff here. Those old machines went for years without a hiccup. They even used 8 tracks in pinball games. I remember a baseball pin with this two track tape of cheering and audience noise. If you got a strike, it cheered.
@@infinitecanadian Well in Canada that is legal so no big deal. I smell it growing all over the place. People grow their own rather than buy it from government. Makes no difference to me. Not a consumer.
@@infinitecanadian LOL you and the rest. As I said makes no difference to me. The government needs the tax dollars, and if it helps drive down organized crime then it is probably a good thing. That was the whole point right. To take the money out of the dealers hands and put it into government coffers where it can be used for health care, and everything else that makes Canada the best place to live.
Can you see the 2 tracks? I own Zenith stereo system with an 8 track player. It has an L and R port on it. When I play an 8 track I can wiggle the cartridge and the sound is very low or it is very lound and clear sometimes. Why is that?
I guess the notion that magnetic tape loses it's recording after years due to the Earth's magnetic field is hogwash? I remember being told that when VHS was replaced by DVD, warning me the old VHS tapes would be garbage after 10 years or so.
Earth's magnetic field is pretty weak and doesn't move around an awful lot (unless the tape itself does). I looked around a bit, seems like the H levels required for partial erasure of ferric tape are beyond 1 kA/m (or B = 1.25 mT), vs. 40-ish A/m (B = 50 µT) produced by our planet - doesn't seem overly critical. You better don't store your tapes next to your horseshoe magnet though (~0.1 T at surface), and the same presumably goes for magnetic tools.
