I Have the 803 and the PB/REC housing is cracked as well. I'm going to use your method and fix it. The machine itself is in 9/10 condition cosmetically. The belts where good and it sounds fine.
My Panasonic RA-6600 receiver had that same exact 8-track mechanism (even that same giant gear for the eject mechanism, lol). I think those later-70's decks were all using the same tape drive mechanism with that same cursed plastic nylon piece. I guess being that all those decks were built the same way it's sorta convenient if you need spare parts, but it sucks in that they were cheaply designed/built. But on eBay people actually sell new 3D-printed pieces of it, which is nice.
Hello , I am working on one of these now. Am I correct that the Ground clip goes on top of the head and the shim sits between the bottom of the head and the bottom of the plastic bracket? Thanks for your time.
I believe the shim goes at the top between the ground clip and the head, if you pause the video at 18:06 I think you can see the shim, in other frames close to that time you can see the bottom of the head appears to lay flat against the plastic bracket.
Ok I will try that first then. My shim fell out into my hand I was like oh crap! Where does that go top or bottom? If you put it back under the ground clip in the top when you fixed yours and had no issues with any hum or any noise, then I try that first. I decided to use a 10 gauge stainless steel guitar string for my fixing my bracked. I used it like a twist tie around the bracket and I am about to melt it into the plastic to re-enforce it and fix the crack. Thanks for the reply back! Much appreciated, and you have a subscription from me to your channel! Sincerely, Desode
She's a rebranded Hitachi from about '75, The screw in the headstall is not the hight adjustment. Look for two holes on the bottom of the deck. In one hole is the azimuth, the other is the height.
Yep, I did find that and adjusted it, I thought I mentioned it in one part of the video. I knew they didn't have an erase head but never knew thats what a bulk eraser was for, but what if you just want to record over one song? lol
@@luvradios Yes, you did. There's actually two down there; a height adjustment to eliminate crosstalk, and azimuth for treble reproduction. Yes, it's a pain to align the head an 8-track deck, but once you've done it the sound can blow cassettes right out of the water by comparison. While the space on the tape is the same as cassette tape, the speed is twice as fast, thus twice the information. The 8-track format got a bad reputation for to undeserving reasons: Heads that were/are out of alignment, and dirty heads and capstans. The head moving throws it out of alignment from time to time, and the twice as fast as cassette speed means that the deck has to be cleaned twice as often. It got a bad reputation for legit reasons as well: 45 minutes is as much as the format can handle do to the difference between supply (the inside of the "loop") and take-up (outside) circumference leading to jamming. Yes, there are longer tapes, but they will jam up in time. Stay away from 80 and 90 minute tapes as they are useless..60 minute tapes are better, but not by much. No rewind. The portables devour batteries (again; twice the speed, and the head moving). Now you know far more than any sane person should about 8-tracks...lol. BTW...that's one of the best decks ever built.
@@DriveInFreak those two semi flaccid belts were waaaay past expiration/fresh/sell by date. After all that VERY good bit-o-work I wouldn't have given any zombie rubber the time of day, especially conduct a wow 😳 flutter assessment test.
Check the contact points the foil part of the tape shorts across when it auto switches, if it will manually change tracks then it would almost have to be something with those contacts or the wiring.
@luvradios Where are these contacts located? Is it possible that cleaning these contacts may help solve the program change issue? How do you fix the tape counter if it doesn't work while there's a tape playing? Thank you!😀
