Quote:
Originally Posted by waltchan
Never, ever replace the original JVC belts with new, Chinese-made ones. Inferior rubber material quality. Easily turn to goo or melt into black, sticky liquid.
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I was just servicing one of the tape transports on a circa 1991 Sony ES cassette deck on Friday and my goodness the capstan belt was the absolute worst mess I have ever had to clean up. What an absolute horrorshow. Worse even than the circa 1984 Yamaha CD player that I attempted to revive a few years ago (I got it working, but I think the laser is weak as it will not track all the way through a disc.) I haven't started on the other one yet as I know I'll need to set aside several hours for goo clean up.
In contrast, the main drive belt on a similar age (circa 1988) NEC VCR simply got hard and snapped, took only a few seconds to clean up. However, it appears that either something leached out of the belt itself or there was grease on it when it was taken out of service, as the portion of the plastic pulley on which the belt was sitting before it broke was actually slightly etched. Plays fine with a new belt however. The two loading belts were still OK although the one that was easy to replace I did as it was noticeably harder/stiffer than the new one.
Anyone have any experience with new production belts from e.g. PRB? Should they be pre-emptively replaced if you have to pop the top for any reason on a machine serviced with such belts to prevent gooification, or do they age gracefully?