Toshiba SV-771 has white dot/streak in video output...damaged head?

[technoman9]

Greetings,

I just got done resurrecting a Toshiba SV-771 with the help of ya'll at this thread: http://videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=274730
It sat for about 5 years without use in our basement and had erratic playback due to a dirty mode switch. The VCR now plays without issue and generates a good picture, except for one defect...

There is always a white dot/streak on the screen erratically dancing back and forth across the screen and always at the same vertical position (see attached pictures). Sometimes it's very weak or almost gone, other times there are several copies of it. I also noticed that the tapes coming out of the unit had a crease about 1/3 down from the top.

Sleuthing found a hard speck of dirt on a tape guide at just the right spot. I super cleaned that guide as well as the whole tape path and even cleaned the heads with chamois. To my dismay, the streak is still present in the video. No matter what tape I play (tried several from various other VCRs), it's always present at the same horizontal line. The rest of the picture is about as perfect as VHS can get, tracking great and with HiFi audio.

One other point: when I first started working on this VCR, the video head was locked and would not rotate. I think the bearing corroded while sitting in our basement. I broke it free by twisting on it since I had nothing to lose when I first started working on it. I'm not sure if this could cause an electrical fault but it spins freely now.

Is this a sign of a damaged head, or something else? I'm not sure how to interpret this fault.