You didn't put the flat plastic ring in properly at all, the tape goes through it, it doesn't just sit on top. Its in Warner carts and a few others and stops the pack from raising up in the middle. I'm guessing you repaired the splice that broke with this part out. Right now, that cartridge is not going to play properly, and will be compressing the tape as it come out the centre of the hub.
Live in the country when i was young.people would throw them out on the side of the road.fixed a bunch of 8 tracks doing this same stuff.great video.took me down memory lane..
I tried fixing one 23 years ago ended up with the tape eating itself to death from the inside. Took it apart only to find the tape all thin out stretched wrapped around the inner core. Never tried it again. Excellent video
Cool, found one of these in the river today and was wondering how these things work so I could try to patch it back together and play it. I've done it with several cassette tapes from the river, but never an 8 track before.
Thanks for the informative video! Your explanation of how the tape maintains tension because of the different diameters of the output (inner) and takeup (outer) parts of the reel was a revelation... I had some that had been pulled out and had no idea how to take up that slack. Duh...
I've repaired a few of these. They can be a nightmare! I still had to run the tapes in the machine for an hour until it played properly due to the tape being too tight or too loose. You get some interesting sound effects as the tape slips and slows down! Lol
4:09 Not sure what kind of Krazy glue you were using, but generally you cannot let Krazy Glue (cyanoacrylate) come in contact with cotton (such as a Q Tip or other cotton swab). Additional info: Super glue (cyanoacrylate) reacts with cotton to produce enough heat to start a fire. This rapid chemical reaction can cause minor burns. .
I have read 8tracks were invented by the inventor of the Karaoke business. He had to use reel to reel machines in the beginning and use the tape counter to get near the beginning of a selection then fast forward or reverse a few times to find the beginning of a selected song. big reels equal's time to find song so divided by 4 and make a continuous "shorter tape" same amount of songs just a 1/4 of the length of tape. however the 8track cassette is a self defeating design and will self tighten to the point of self destruct etc etc
I never understood how the tape always comes from a smaller radius and always comes back on a larger radius and stays even. It seems like it should either loosen or tighten circling around at uneven speeds. I still don't get it.
Because 8-Tracks sound superior to CD’s - in my opinion they are the best kept secret (as of Aug. 2020) for purchasing on the cheap with awesome sound quality. Similar with cassettes which are now starting to see a resurgence in value.
Hey there. If the 8-track tape were to look like that cartridge shown except if the back of the cartridge were to have a triangle shape on the back instead of the shape usually shown on the back of the Warner Brothers cartridge would it have the exact same holes all the way around shown or is there a chance it may have different holes shown on the spool itself? :)
Thanks. If you watched all the videos in the play list for the clock you would have seen I had two real bad pivot holes that need bushing. They finally got so bad that it would stop. I'm hopping to make a final video for the series that included a simple DIY bushing job.
Dear Todd, what can be done if the amount of tape that come from inside is very long (say 3 m), I tried to compensate the tension pulling from inside hoping that sooner or later the difference in length will be compensated... after an hour of trying I renounced ... is there a remedy in such cases?
Take it apart and re-spool. Takes about an hour too. However most times it gets all messed up and you can't get it back on. I was able to do it once but then the tape was later distorted by bad machine.
@@christianjohnson7228 The right side, as demoed on this video (the normal direction of tape). Just pull harder and quicker to get spool to spin. This is useful when tape is pulled out accidentally or was stuck on head (needs cleaning).
Yes! That's the reason I read through these comments, to see if anyone would mention that. It was actually one of the things I liked about 8-tracks (early/mid 70s). The things were notorious for getting "eaten" by the player, so after carefully pulling it out you'd have anywhere from a few inches to a few feet of tape hanging out. And it was actually FUN to reel it back in, using the trick you described... but you could actually do 2 feet or more, and it was almost a challenge to see if you could do it all in one pull. Ah... good times. :)
I could see how that could happen. Maybe you could open it, flip it, manually roll it a few times to get the flip under a few wraps then put it back together and run it until it comes back out the right side around?
Worst invention...EVER. I do appreciate this video. I'm actually surprised there's a video on these nightmare devices. This device was invented for all the wrong reasons. I think Lear was a Sadist.
