As someone who has fixed dozens of 8 track tapes a in his past, I wish I had seen this video back then. I used the weather stripping like you mentioned and it is the best solution because it is already self adhesive. I used aluminum foil and glue when I first fixed some tapes, then I found the sensing foil being sold at 8 track shack. But when doing the fixes, I had yards of tape all over my carpet winding and winding! Ha! If I knew about your method It would have been a real time saver! Thanks for the great demo! Luckily I can use this on two tapes I need to put new pads on. I know some of the tape will come off when I open the darn carts up, so now I know what to do to avoid tape all over the place. 🙂
Dave, I've fixed a few 8 track tapes. I found that the glue for the track-changing foil splice dries out and falls off. What I do is listen carefully and the instant the tape changes tracks, I quickly pull and remove the cartridge so the track-sensing foil splice is visible. It's then quite easy then to replace it with a new one.
Or ideally you have an 8-track player that has an option to stop at the splice foil instead of changing programs. But most simpler players don't do that, like the 8-track player I have. I wonder how hard it would be to put an auto stopping circuit in thats switchable. I'd think it's not impossible, at least *goes to check some schematics*.
I looked at schematics and browsed the internet a bit to find an easy enough solution, then adapted it to be useable at simple 8-track players without auto stop. This version will stop the motor as soon as the splice sensor detects the metal foil of the tape and closes that "switch". Some schematic symbols are a bit off, cause i couldn't find better fitting ones. My copy of kicad needs a symbol update :D Here's the link to the schematic: i.postimg.cc/6qYL5G6b/switch-schematic.png
I really love 8 track, got probably over a thousand of the suckers, spent many many hours (far, far too long for what they're worth) learning how to open and splice and repair them and the machines. I really have a lot of love for 8 tracks, even with every one of their faults and annoyances
Great Vid Dave! brought back the many memories of repacking broadcast carts for the FM station I was chief engineer for. i think we were the only ones in our area that played all of our music on carts (1600+ carts) in regular rotation but at 15 ips yes 15 ips. this was from 1978 up to 2002 when the cart machines were retired. we never played records or compact discs on air went from carts to the RCS pc based system.
The old cart machines did well. I remember getting a tour of an FM station that was automated cart playback. Had carts loades on these huge belts that rotates into place and a pneumatic plunger launched the tape in and another one back out. These things were about 8 feet high and held probably 200 carts each. If I remember they had 2 of them and then another smaller one that held about a dozen. If I remember each one had 2 transports, so any song could be loaded at any time. That way if one went off line the station could stay on the air. Could be fully automated or controlled by the dj from the booth.
8 tracks were available in stores until 1983 and from record clubs until 1988. Radio Shack sold blanks until 1990. Nobody thought these were gone in the 70's. All-in-one stereo units were available with either 8 track or cassette option into the early 80's.
And some "all-in-ones" had both cassette and 8-track for the consumer who had to have it all. Plus Radio Shack was even selling players into the early 90's. The TR-169 playback only deck was such a solid, reliable model and sounded so good that it was available until around '92. In fact, it's one of Barry's (of Barry's 8-track Repair) highly recommended and well liked decks. He did a video on it a few years back. Combined with Dolby noise reduction on many of the Columbia TC8 and almost all of the Canadian and UK EMI carts, frequency response could hit close to 17kHz.
I've just started getting into 8 track as they were before my time and I'm finding them pretty interesting. I was amazed to see you wind all that tape back in.
I've had a mishap here and there with playing 8 track tapes, but man I've never seen a mess like this before. 😮 I own well over one hundred of them and they all still play perfectly fine. I've already replaced all the splices and pressure pads in them for preventative maintenance. 👍🏾
Wow! That was a mess. They did the same with VHS tapes where it got eaten up the VCR, this 8-track player got hungry that it eats tapes. I did fixed 8-track tapes that I got from eBay a month ago including a few blanks and it sounds fine, and records really good.
I used to repair those. Cassettes too. Once I found unwound tape on the side of the road. It was all tangled. I took it home, carefully untangled it, wound it on a tape reel laying on a turntable. Got an empty cartridge, wound it back on the spool. Spliced it. And it played. I forgot what was on it, maybe 38 Special band. I might even wound it on the spool wrong the first time. And it played backwards. I had to redo it if it was.
Good Vid.. Some of the cartridges with plastic pinch rollers would crack and break apart. I worked on many 8 track recorders back in the day when I serviced electronics.
I still have several prerecorded 4 track carts, remember those? Pioneer/Craig used to make a car under dash unit called a 4 + 4 that would play both 8 track and 4 track carts. Now that is old. Muntz used to make 4 track only players.
Yeah, they can be a bit of a bugger when the snap the foil. Trouble is the speed the tape runs at there is a lot pulled out before you notice something is wrong. I repaired one once, never again, it tales the patience of a saint to rewind it all 8-lI gave up with 8 track years ago, not long after cassettes became more popular. I had less trouble with 8 track mind you, but it uses to annoy me when it stopped playing a track to change tracks, then it continued to play the rest of the track. Like everything else, they had advantages and disadvantages. Size was against it as well, you got a lot more cassettes in the shelf of a car. The heat of a car screwed tapes up in any case :-((
Heat in the car was the enemy of CDs in the car too it caused them to warp. I remember my first trip to Las Vegas in my car with my new CD player. I took I think 10 or 12 CDs with me in one of these carry cases and forgot to take it out of my car when I stopped and parked for a while. When I arrive back in my car the CDs had melted to the case and we're all soft and the aluminum reflective surface was all coming off them they're all trashed oops. Probably would have been okay if they're in the plastic jewel case but I put them in while these flexible cases that was black and well you can imagine how hot they got sitting in the sun it wasn't pretty
@@12voltvids Yeah, even over here I just used to take copied CDs, heat, cold, humidity all had it in for them, but if it was a copy it was not so bad. Just copy another. Those plastic wallets, I used then as well, but we don't get the heat like you lot do. Still it is plenty hot at the moment!
@@BoB4jjjjs this happened before we had recordable CDs. I had a 1986 Mustang at the time and I put an aftermarket CD player bolted to the bottom of the dash. The CDs went into plastic caddies that you put into the player. As soon as CDR became available I carried only copies in the car so if they got damaged I made another but more importantly it allowed me to make compilation discs of only the tracks I wanted to hear. Fortunately the discs that were damaged I had a backup because I had dat at home and had copied all of my discs to dat tape so once CD burners became available I just made myself another copy.
@@12voltvids When it was cassettes I copied them as well, I found the tape used to bind to the plastic film inside after a bit of heat. Strange, i bought some Hitachi cassettes, they were not quite so good at frequency range, but I never had one of those tapes fail, never did they get tangled, stuck by heat or bing with the plastic inside. As it was in a car making a lot of noise from road and engine, frequency response didn't mater quite the same. Used them for years without any problems. Treble was a bit lacking, but at least they always played.
Even that the 8-track was plagued with problems (even more than the cassette format), for an European like me it's still a curious piece of old technology. In my part of the world, the 8-track format has been completely unknown. I only got to know of its existence in the recent years. I guess, I "didn't miss out on much", but it feels like I did.
I still have the first and only 8 track tape i ever got. My dad had an 8 track player in his mercedes. It is the Beatles. No album name, just the Beatles. Had can't buy me love, rain, hey Jude ect. A few tracks fade out half way for a track change and then fade back up again. Weather in Star put this 8-track player and my dad's car he used to relay for the speakers it connected the Left Channel to the front and radio speaker and the right Channel to a pair of speakers mounted on the deck of back window. Well as kids in the back wanted to listen to music my dad would turn the balance control to the right so only the rear speakers were on because he didn't like rock and roll. That was a problem with the early Beatles recordings because all the music was on the Left Channel and just singing was on the right Channel. You can imagine how that sounded.
@@12voltvids - Yea, the early, experimental days of stereo recordings. It wasn't only the Beatles. I bet practically all the sound engineers were noobs at it then.
@@750kv8 I think it was more the early days of four track recording. Record your rhythm tracks to track one two and three. Mix those down on to track four. Record some overdubs on track one and two, mix the overdubs with the track 4 mix on the track 3. Record your vocals on to one of the other tracks and essentially all your music is mixed down to a mono track what else are you going to do you've already mixed everything together. At least if you listen to some of the old stuff it sure sounds that way, you'll hear typically all the music out one channel and the vocals with maybe base or drums with them on the other channel. In those instances the mono buttons actually good to have, you get one of those crappy early stereo mixes it sounds better if you put it in mono.
@@12voltvids - So I guess the early problem was the 4-track mixing tape, that was not enough. Basically making a stereo recording from a mixing equipment that was only meant for mono recordings. At least I got this impression.
@@750kv8 pretty much. Paul McCartney has a few videos up on Abbey road studios where he talks about the early days where they had only a 4 track or in some cases 3 tracks to work with.
It’s 2023 and I’ve got my uncles Panasonic 8-track that he had installed in his 63 Ford f100 and took it out to power supply it and play in the garage. I just had a tape splice come apart and was checking out how to do on the older track that are glued and not snapped together. Another thing what kind of sticky tape does best to repair the splice? I’ll watch again in case I missed it. Am listening to The Statler Brothers and got distracted. Lol
Well you have to use that foil tape otherwise it won't switch programs. It's the metallic place that changes it over and you can use the sensing tape for 1/4 inch reel to reel tapes that were used to trigger the auto reverse on auto reverse decks.
Always replace the splice, even if it looks good. I have thousands of 8-tracks. I've replaced the splice and pads in pretty much all of them at this point. They all play flawlessly and I never worry.
@@12voltvids I use reel-to-reel both half track (2 track) and 4-track on both Revox A77 and Technics RS-1500 decks, cassettes of various formulations on a Nakamichi Dragon 3-head deck and 8-tracks (just for the hell of it.) Tape isn't dead. Perhaps you need to expand the circle of people you know. lol
@@nick_vee that's nice. Go ahead and live in the past. The rest of the world has moved on from hissy tape and distorted vinyl. We like pristine pure noise free digital sound and install access, but you are free to use whatever turns your crank and enjoy dynamic range limited distorted sound.
I Remember Learjet As they also made The 8 Track players too, Infact i still have 2 of them here and Boxes of Tapes, Some still New Tapes with Country Music on them.
I had a couple of 8 track players to fix for a mate, the capstan and head lifter was locked up solid with muck and dead grease. The belt had broken down in to black gooo :-( After a good clean and belt it worked, not too bad after the head was alligned. Good enough for car/truck entertainment :-D
Hi Dave! Looks like you're having a great fun time fixing the 8-track cartridge!! Lol 😆. I remember having to repair these from time to time back in the day ! Would cut a strip of foil tape to replace the bad splice from a roll of foil tape, like used for air conditioning duct work!
I've played many 8 Tacks over the years and never seen this happen. I have had the splice break, but the tape stopped moving. Apparently, a splice break immediately after a track change is the best time for that to happen.
If you’re lucky. Those of us who still work on and listen to this format daily will tell you otherwise. The majority of repairs I see when the foil splice separates or falls off completely, involve boxes and bags full of “spaghetti” and “accordion” tape due to the feed end being pulled in the deck by the capstan as you clearly experienced in this video. Your videos on electronics repair are fascinating to watch and I’m sure are very accurate, but when the facts and procedures you present in videos about tape medium and other formats you’re not familiar with are fairly incorrect, perhaps you should stick with showing people about electronics repair. As several others have pointed out in the comments, there are hundreds if not thousands of 8-track repair people and fans who still fix, tune up and enjoy these cartridges on a daily basis and who can easily explain how they work, how they sound and, unfortunately how they fail without being serviced prior to playing as you have seen here. Learn from our knowledge as we watch your videos and learn about electronics repair.
@@nick_vee I am fully aware on how they fail and why they fail and i really could care less about your opinion. I have more knowledge of these tapes. I have fixed hundreds of them and if it was a tape that was going to be played more than once would redo the splice. I am dealing with one now that is going to have to be totally unspoiled because it has bound and totally seized up. Yup all the tape needs to come off the shell and be spooled onto an empty reel then wound back onto the 8 track slip spool. Perhaps I will do a video of this perhaps not.
Also I have an 8 tracks that seams like it's spulled backwards. The graphite side is on the outside of it. Is this normal or do I need to respull it as well
Seems you broke the cardinal rule of 8-tracks. Never ever pop an unknown tape in your deck without servicing it first. This is what happens when you break that rule. lol. Play the tape until it almost gets to the foil splice then roll it by hand until the foil appears. Chances are it’s barely hanging on for dear life and needs to be cut out and replaced with a small strip of fresh splicing foil that they still sell online similar to the type you have. Sounds like you gambled by running it through three track changes and your luck eventually ran out. The foam pad is probably crumbling too and if it’s an early 60’s Lear Jet or Ampex or GRT tape, the pinch roller in the tape may be a gooey mess. These things are 40-50 years old need a little TLC before you play them. Once they get fixed, they should sound good and last a long time despite what the format’s critics claim. Take it from collectors and people who love the format. With the right deck, properly aligned and cleaned and with good tapes that aren’t trashed, they should work well and not do this. Unfortunately, people buy them at flea markets and yard sales and want to just pop them in and play them and this is what happens then they say 8-tracks suck.. 😆
8 tracks do suck. Frequency response to 10khz. Am radio quality. This tape was never to be played. Guy that owned it said check it out and see what is on it. If it was him playing guitar and singing digitize it if not don't. Generally the splice let's go right at the point where the splice goes over the detection sensor and no damage. This one let go well after that. And it only went over it once because i was cycling through the tracks checking to see what was on the tape.
I throw mine away when they screw up.. The format itself is horrendous , fun ! Don't get me wrong but not anything worth saving. Quality is mediocre and hit and miss as best.
There are several 8 track groups on facebook. I'd recommend joining the larger one and running issues you encounter by the folks there that work with these daily before posting a video that may be less than 50% correct like this one. After all, people may only watch your video and believe that this is correct because you're saying it, not because it actually is. Yes, it appears the tape is technically functioning, but only for the moment. Your information about the slack tightening up after playing the tape is incorrect. It will be that loose forever until you open it back up and reset it properly. Also as others may have mentioned, opening up an 8 track before playing it to inspect for potential issues is the correct way to deal with these 50 year old tapes where the majority either have a problem or are definitely headed for a problem if played blindly. Your deck there is probably not capable of over 10kHz but up to 17khz is possible on nicer decks. I get that this was a novelty video for you and that your main focus is on other electronics. But you have a platform here, and imagine watching a video of someone with influence speaking with authority about repairing something that you work on all the time but getting it mostly wrong. Would make you cringe. Just because you don't see or hear anything about 8 tracks ever in your world doesn't mean that there aren't thousands or tens of thousands of people who are focusing on them. Videos like this are not helpful, if you can see where I'm coming from.
