I recently got some help here on how to open up my Beocenter 8000, and I have done so succesfully – thanks to those who helped.
I knew the tape belts needed replacing so I ordered a set from Beoparts and replaced them. It seemed a successful task – the wheels spun very smoothy and quietly when thumbed around before I out it all back together, and I have successfully replaced belts on other B&O tape decks before, so I felt pretty confident.
I did find that the belt supplied by Beoparts for looping to the motor was a bit loose, but fortunately I had some other belts of a similar type and found one a little tighter.
Nor entirely successful however – when playing on side 1, it sometimes can be heard to slow down a little – not a lot, but noticeable. This seems to get worse the further into playing the tape you get (I might be imagining that, but….).
When playing side 2 there is an additional problem – a constant clicking noise. I identified the cause of that and this may be the cause of both problems (the sluggish speed, and the clicking), but I can’t figure out how to fix it. I’ll describe it as best I can:
With the plastic cover removed from the front of the tape unit, above and behind the cassette there are two white plastic levers operated on a simple spring. One has a kind of ‘tooth’ that engages with teeth on the left tape spindle, and one on the right tape spindle (I hope ‘spindle’ is the right word!). When you push the heads up with your thumb into the play position, these levers cause those teeth to disengage from both spindles, allowing them to spin freely – or they should.
The one on the left tape spindle isn’t fully disengaging, so, when playing side B, and this spindle is doing the work, that tooth on the lever clicks against the teeth on the spindle wheel, hence the noise only when playing side B.
Those two levers are connected by three tiny cog teeth that you can only just see, so that moving one lever moves the other – the teeth seems to be engaging okay, so I can’t understand why one of them doesn’t seem to be quite moving as far as it should – less than a millimetre needed. If you push it directly with your thumb it moves far enough to disengage the teeth, but not when pushed by the movement of the tape heads.
I know this is difficult to understand from a written description but there are so many experts here, maybe one of you has come across this problem before? Might as well ask just in case eh!?
Oh, and I believe these Beocenters (8000 thru 9500) have either type 1 or type 2 tape deck mechanisms – mine is type 2.
.
