Speaking of broken VCR's, I've had this VCR for almost a year now, and I still have not located the source of the goofy problem it's having. It's stuck in stop mode. Every time you turn it on, the tape transport motor goes crazy trying to bring the tape guide posts back to the ready position, and since it does that, the tape basket will not mechanically latch. It you take the bottom off and manually spin the tape transport wheel, the lid will latch, but as soon as you turn it on, it just goes back to stop mode. It's like it doesn't know when to stop trying to stop. I have gotten it into play mode, twice. I took the belt off the motor that drives the transport, pressed play, the motor started going to opposite way, and then shortly after that, it went back into stop mode. The VFT650 is in my opinion, one of the coolest top loading VHS machines made. And I didn't even know this, but my VFT650 has 4 video heads. I counted.

Speaking of broken VCR's, I've had this VCR for almost a year now, and I still have not located the source of the goofy problem it's having. It's stuck in stop mode. Every time you turn it on, the tape transport motor goes crazy trying to bring the tape guide posts back to the ready position, and since it does that, the tape basket will not mechanically latch. It you take the bottom off and manually spin the tape transport wheel, the lid will latch, but as soon as you turn it on, it just goes back to stop mode. It's like it doesn't know when to stop trying to stop. I have gotten it into play mode, twice. I took the belt off the motor that drives the transport, pressed play, the motor started going to opposite way, and then shortly after that, it went back into stop mode. The VFT650 is in my opinion, one of the coolest top loading VHS machines made. And I didn't even know this, but my VFT650 has 4 video heads. I counted.

Interesting it seems that 'tis the season for broken down VCRs with issues that cannot be traced to a definite source. I wish I could help you but I've never worked on Top-loader VCRs that old successfully especially not RCAs. It seems like every single Top-loader VCR I find that needs work, ends up having some sort of issue with it that is beyond my repair expertise and I end up having to junk it out. To me in my experience it seems that the Top-loader VCRs are more of a hassle than they're worth as far as working on them goes and as far as having more problems than the front loaders ever did.

Yep. It definitely is VCR season. I got my first old VCR around this time seven years ago, and last year on this very weekend, I made the trip to Atlanta and scored seven super old VCR's and a Sylvania TV.

Equivalent to a Panasonic PV-1770 if that will help you find info about it.

Without having it here in front of me I don't recognize the symptom.

Computer tells me I worked on three VFT650's in the early to mid 90's (and, one PV-1770) but all were not anything considered to be a 'dog', as this one sounds like it may be.

It does sound like the classic dirty mode switch, however. You might try some contact cleaner in the switch.

Yep many times odd mechanism operation can be the mode switch. I don't recall if those have the load-unload complete leaf switches at the rear of the mechanism like some old top-loaders had.

Those were loaded with alignments for SP LP and SLP servos norm, ff & rev search, cylinder servos norm ff rev search still and slow tracking presets PG phase + and - , head peaking, all sorts of adjustments. I think the RCA version only had SP and SLP record, only play LP tapes? Anyway don't go turning things! Unless you have the service manual and oscilloscope.

True. Could be individual switches, indeed. It only had to be "loaded", or "not". There wasn't all that "in between" crap that came along later.

I was thinking that it was a switch somewhere. What exactly do I need to do to this thing?

Locate the switch(es)and clean the contacts.

Well I decided to scrap the VFT650 and use it for parts for my PV-1770. The latter had a cylinder drum that was so locked up, it was hard to turn by hand. I took the entire cylinder drum out of the VFT650 and put it in the PV-1770, and it spins perfectly. All the PV-1770 needs now is a couple belts and an idler tire.
"I AM THE VCR MASTER! MWA HA HA"

All the PV-1770 needs now is a couple belts and an idler tire.
Not quite. Any time you replace a drum assy you should to do a tape path alignment, the cylinder servo alignments and head switching phase alignment, ACE head position (or "X-value") and tracking center. Even taking out and putting back the same drum isn't a sure thing it will be in exactly the same position. There's a slight amount of play in the fit of the drum to the chassis. But maybe you got lucky and are pretty close. At least it makes a picture!

I have no idea if it makes a picture or not. It won't load all the way into play mode. I'm going to order belts for it from Studio Sound Electronics pretty soon and we'll find out.

I have no idea if it makes a picture or not. It won't load all the way into play mode. I'm going to order belts for it from Studio Sound Electronics pretty soon and we'll find out.

The Panasonic VCR on the left side of the TV in your picture is just like one that was given to me by a friend of mine I used to go to church with years ago, that one (which was my first bad experience with top-loader VCRs) had an issue where when you tried to play a tape in the VCR it would play back in only Black and White and no color, and I tried everything I could to try and fix it but no such luck and that VCR ended up in the scrap pile (of course this was before I knew about this website).

I have always been of the opinion that if you have the patience and skill to fix antique VCR's, they are a joy to behold. But if you don't know what you're doing, they are a major PITA. I have been fixing VCR's since I was in 5th grade. I know a thing or two, because I've seen a thing or two. (Taken from Farmers commercial.)

I have always been of the opinion that if you have the patience and skill to fix antique VCR's, they are a joy to behold. But if you don't know what you're doing, they are a major PITA. I have been fixing VCR's since I was in 5th grade. I know a thing or two, because I've seen a thing or two. (Taken from Farmers commercial.)

Well at the time that I had received that old Panasonic Top-loader that's like yours in your picture I only had experience working on front loader vcrs that mainly only had mechanical issues (like bad belts or timing of the loading mechanism getting off track) I had never dealt with top loader VCRs before let alone VCRs in general that had electrical problems that would involve actually replacing NLA parts like video heads or ICs or transistors or other electrical parts that would fail and cause a video malfunction such as no color during video play back or what not. So really it had nothing to do with a lack of patience (I have plenty of patience to work on electronics because I've completely recapped and restrung antique tube radios for myself and for other people and that is a very time consuming and requires lots of patience) the problem was a lack of experience dealing with Top-Loader VCRs (which are a whole other beast to deal with, issues wise than a front loader VCR is), and a lack of experience dealing with electrical failures in VCRs in general (because like I said, up to that point all I've ever dealt with were front-loader VCRs that only had minor mechanical issues.) And actually I have been working on electronics in general since I was in 7th grade and I'm 28 now, so that kind of gives you an idea of how long I've been working on electronics in general. My very first electronics repair was a 1983 vintage Montgomery Wards 13" B & W TV that someone gave me that had a messed up Vertical and Horizontal hold and all I did was readjust the horizontal and vertical hold knobs on the back of the TV and it worked fine and I used that TV for about a year before I finally got a 13" Zenith Color TV from a friend from school and I donated the old Montgomery Wards TV to Goodwill and the TV was still working fine when I donated it, and I used that old Zenith TV up until just shortly before the DTV Transition (I had a cable compatible VCR hooked up to it and I watched cable through the VCR as the TV was a knobbed TV but still had great picture and was still working with excellent picture yet when I finally donated it to Goodwill.)

Well I decided to scrap the VFT650 and use it for parts for my PV-1770. The latter had a cylinder drum that was so locked up, it was hard to turn by hand. I took the entire cylinder drum out of the VFT650 and put it in the PV-1770, and it spins perfectly. All the PV-1770 needs now is a couple belts and an idler tire.
"I AM THE VCR MASTER! MWA HA HA"

I'd have taken some penetrating oil and tried to free up the old drum first...If a part is nearly shot there is no harm in trying to fix it before changing it.

I can still do that. The whole drum assembly is still sitting on top of my TV. I just don't have a screwdriver small enough to take it apart.

No need to take it apart just spray the stuff anywhere where it has a chance to find it's way into the bearings, and places the rotating part touches the stationary part...Manually turn it some, wait 10-15 minutes and try again...PB Blaster penetrating oil has helped me get some pretty stuck parts on my cars and playback mechs unstuck.

This has to be the easiest VCR in the world to change the idler tire on. The PV-1770 had good fast forward, but no rewind, so I put the idler tire from the VFT650 in there, and now I have strong fast forward and strong rewind. All I need now is the loading motor belt, so I can get play mode back. It tries, but the belts slip and it times out. It's on the way from Studio Sound Electronics.

Apparently, I'm still not out of the woods yet. I put two new belts on the Panasonic PV-1770. They all work perfectly. The VCR didn't tell me that it had yet another problem in there. Now that it has new belts, it will actually load into play mode 100℅, but I'm not getting the relay click that confirms that the VCR knows it's in play mode. It loads perfectly, no relay click, then it goes back into stop mode. It's doing the opposite of what the VFT650 was doing. I'm thinking it's that durned mode switch. I put the mode switch from the VFT650 in there, and it did NOTHING. I put the original mode switch in there, and it was back to normal. This was a couple days ago.

Do you know how to look for cylinder servo lock, or close to it? Under a fluorescent light (old magnetic 60 Hz ballast preferred) when it spins up to speed you should see a visible nearly stationary pattern on top of the cylinder from the stroboscopic effect. I mention this because they will shut down like you describe if it detects something dragging the cyl motor down (like a bad tape) making it lose servo phase lock. MAYBE it needs the cylinder servo alignment, but without the service manual I can't tell you which TP# to hook to and pot to adjust. I used to have those alignments memorized I did them so many times.

Thanks Ed. Speaking of the service manual, I found this bulletin in mine that describes almost the exact problem I'm having. Only my problem is not intermittent. It says the corrective action is to change the belt, and I already did that. It says that if the load is not completed in a specific time, the microprocessor will tell the machine will go into stop mode, which is what it's doing, even though the tape is Fully Loaded.

OKAY, HERE'S THE DEAL........ The PINCHROLLER is the problem. NOT the mode switch. I actually got it to go into play mode and stay there. When I tried to eject the tape, it was completely crinkled and destroyed. I also noticed that after I took the tape out, the PINCHROLLER was right up against the capstan drive, that's what crinkled the tape. So I move the pinchroller back to the normal position, load another tape, press play, and MANUALLY move the pinchroller over, and it clicked into play mode. So now I have to figure out WHY the pinchroller is so hard to move. I did put a drop of lubrication on it, and it did not help.

I was going to ask if the pinch roller solenoid was engaging the roller. Maybe the plunger in the solenoid is sticking and needs to be taken apart and cleaned.

I've never done anything like that in a VCR before. I'll check the service manual and the parts machine and see if I can figure it out.

How hard is it to move the roller? I've seen top load beta decks where they greased the pivot of the arm the roller is on and the grease turned to glue....Twas so bad on one deck that in trying to remove the arm the pin which was cast into the metal below came out with the arm! :eek:

It's stiff, but it's not too stiff. The VCR has some trouble doing it on its own. I tried it out despite it having the pinchroller problem, and I was very impressed by the picture. The only problem it's having in play mode, is that it loses horizontal sync in forward search and reverse search. Drum slowing down? Here (https://youtu.be/qe4pSZAM_uk) is a video of what the pinchroller is doing.

I swear. For every problem I fix, two more manifest within seconds. Now, it's switching between SP, LP, AND SLP very rapidly, and there is a loud clicking sound coming from the power supply when it does so. On pre-recorded tapes, it doesn't do it, but on ANY tape that I recorded, it clicks between all three speeds very quickly. And don't tell me to clean the control head. I did that three times. If this thing doesn't stop breaking every second, it's about to become dumpster food.

Update. I just spent the last hour and a half adjusting the audio/control head assembly, and I got it to where it will track perfectly on SP and LP tapes, but it still will not track SLP tapes. It just clicks all around on SP, LP, and SLP. On the plus side, I have never seen a VCR that has a PERFECT freeze frame and frame adavance on SP. The pause is absolutely beautiful with no noise at all. The picture is in pause on an SP tape.

The control track is on the bottom edge of the tape. That has to have perfect contact, no skewing, no wrinkled edge of the tape. Could be the SLP capstan servo alignment too. In fact I am pretty certain the cap and cyl servo all need alignment being as aged as it is. When people were still bringing them in for service the servos would have drifted off at least a little. Every one that passed my bench got a servo tune-up.

As to losing horiz sync in search modes that is the cylinder servo alignment. On those machines there are separate adjustments for normal and FF REV search modes at the different tape speeds. You need an oscilloscope and service manual to do those alignments.

I looked at the pinch roller video. Looks like it's gummed up not moving freely. It should have some looseness to it when not engaged, and release instantly when the solenoid releases.

Okay, thanks. Here (https://youtu.be/Nmez3tCLf70) is a video of what it's doing. I found that if I press on the control head, it tracks fine, so I looked in the service book and found three A/C head adjustments. I tweaked those, and it still won't track right. VERY Frustrating.

I'll do as Ed said and check the electro caps in the servo circuit .Some could want dry over the years.

If it was in front of me, with it in play I would look down at the control head with a flashlight and my little dental mirror to see how the head is aligned, the pickup pole or core should be just barely visible below the edge of the tape. And the audio pole should be barely visible above the tape.


And I assume you cleaned it. Sometimes I would have to use a polishing compound on the AC head to get hardened-on gunk off, especially the older linear stereo VCRs would come in with the L channel muffled and barely audible. No freon or alcohol would cut it. Put a bit of automotive polishing compound on the tip of a wet Q tip and gently going back-and-forth in a horizontal motion I would polish the head.Then clean it with alcohol to remove any of the compound. Audio restored. Same can happen with the CTL track especially since it's on the bottom edge of the tape.

Everything that Ed and Central said (particularly about alignment), plus:

And I assume you cleaned it. Sometimes I would have to use a polishing compound on the AC head to get hardened-on gunk off, especially the older linear stereo VCRs would come in with the L channel muffled and barely audible. No freon or alcohol would cut it. Put a bit of automotive polishing compound on the tip of a wet Q tip and gently going back-and-forth in a horizontal motion I would polish the head. Then clean it with alcohol to remove any of the compound. Audio restored. Same can happen with the CTL track especially since it's on the bottom edge of the tape.

Usually, for those real stubborn cases, iso/rubbing alcohol followed by the usual head cleaner fluid treatment was effective enough in my experiences. I never tried polishing compound but I'll bet that would do great! Wish I could ever have an opportunity to try it!

... I never tried polishing compound but I'll bet that would do great! Wish I could ever have an opportunity to try it!

Our audio guy used to keep some on his bench too. Cassette decks in particular with a weak muffled L channel (usually L) and reel to reel decks too with the same.

I remember getting in VCRs the customer had used the wet type cleaner tape in. Would pick up whatever crud before the pinch roller then get rung out at the pinch roller leaving buildup mostly above and below the tape path which would dry on the capstan shaft. Tough stuff to get off without polishing compound.

What about Blue Magic Metal polish? That's what I polish my vacuum cleaners with.

Don't know never tried it. If you can polish out plastic or painted surface with it would probably be ok.

I remember getting in VCRs the customer had used the wet type cleaner tape in. Would pick up whatever crud before the pinch roller then get rung out at the pinch roller leaving buildup mostly above and below the tape path which would dry on the capstan shaft. Tough stuff to get off without polishing compound.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Ha! That reminds me of an '83 or 84 Panasonic model I looked at decades ago.

Have you seen/do you remember the spin paint machines at the fairs/carnivals? Where you'd set a plate (or, whatever) on a spinning turntable and squeeze the paint out of bottles? And, the paint would go all over the place including up against the interior walls of the machine?

Well, in this particular VCR there was some kind of white stain all over the inside. Maybe it was a wet cleaner that someone just totally overdosed on. Wherever it was sprayed outward from the upper cylinder. I have no idea what the substance was. But, it was all over the place and at the very same angle as the cylinder! Weird looking.

Before going all the way with polishing compound, I'd try isopropyl alcohol on a coffee filter. I always kept a stack of coffee filters on the bench, they are often just abrasive enough to cut through gunk that a chamois swab won't touch and they don't leave behind a trace of residue.

I was factory trained by RCA, Panasonic and several other brands starting in 1978 for like twenty years. I knew the VFT650 like that back of my hand. I'm pretty sure your symptom was a dirty mode switch which I'm sure was a 4 position slide switch which would need cleaning and lube with contact lubricant. In the beginning years, RCA VCR's were Matsushita chassis (Panasonic's parent company) then later Hitachi. As someone said on here, moving a cylinder ass'y to another VCR will require a multitude of adjustments. You would be better off trying to find the mode switch and clean it. The mode switch also had a critical alignment by sliding it when the mounting screw was loosened. Before removing it to clean, etch the chassis metal to mark where it was. If not, it's very hard to get it back in alignment. As far as the seized cylinder motor, you could remove the head and try feeding a drop of fine oil down the shaft where the bearing would be and on the underside as well since you removed it. Be very careful with a video head that has been removed. Those tiny heads are actually on a glass substrate and will shatter !! Larry G

Okay then. If I had known the PV-1770 was going to have so many problems, I might have just tried to fix the VFT650. But unfortunately, the VFT650 is now strictly a parts machine. I still haven't figured out the pinchroller issue or the poor control tracking in SLP mode. Do you think you can help with that?

Ok if the servo is stable when you press the tape on the control head that narrows it down quickly to head/tape issue. Take the tape out, release the tape door lock and flip the door up. Is the bottom of the tape creased/furled in any way? If it is the tape is now junk and the problem could be what's called the P5 arm if this model has it. Is there a small arm that comes out to the right of the capstan, between the capstan and where the tape goes back in the cassette? Does it look bent at all? This will cause tape curling. Look with a magnifier at the audio/control head. Is there any kind of wear groove at the bottom of the control head? Then the head is shot. If there is a groove, you can try lowering the height of the head slightly so the groove is a mm or two below the tape. I didn't read back far enough to what kind of pinch roller issue you have. Back when I was doing service those were pretty hardy and didn't cause problems except cleaning . Now I remember some would deteriorate and leave rubber on the capstan which I would scrape off with my fingernails and cleaner. I think the Mitsubishi ones I had to replace but not this brand. Larry G

Every SLP tape I tried, it would switch back and forth. SP and LP both track fine. I tried moving the head every which way, and I could never get it to track at all on SLP.