1970s? Hitachi VT-8500A VCR found today

[Captainclock]

Well I've got the rewind and f. forward working perfectly, but still no dice on the play function, the capstan pincher roller assembly I've noticed isn't engaging properly, when it engages with the tape, it only engages part of the way in instead of all the way in, because when I put a little force onto the pincher roller assembly and the tape starts moving in play mode but then the VCR kicks the tape back out of the mechanism.

So what should I look into now? I was able to get the idler tire to work again (apparently the idler tire mechanism and the solenoid mechanism was out of whack which is why the idler tire wasn't engaging with the capstan motor) so now I just need to figure out why the pincher roller isn't engaging with the tape which is what's causing the no play issue (the pincher roller mechanism also engages the top side of the idler tire mechanism with the take-up reel and since that's not engaging properly its not playing). Also I noticed that when I try to rewind a tape that's longer than an hour the rewind mechanism poops out once it gets towards the beginning of the tape, the fast forward part works fine but the rewind just can't rewind completely a tape that's longer than an hour (90+ minute tapes).

any ideas folks?

[Captainclock]

Well went back to the computer store where I picked up this VCR at in their freebie pile and I looked back over their freebie pile (technically it was a bin but either way) and to my amazement on the very bottom of the freebie pile bin was sitting the original remote for this VCR so I reached down in there and pulled it out and sure enough the remote showed signs that it had been chewed on by a dog (the 15' cable was taped up in a couple of spots presumably to cover up some spots where the original owner's dog had chewed the cord and then the actual control interface of the remote (where the buttons are at) had bite marks and scuff marks from where a dog had apparently chewed on the remote. Anyways I got the remote home plugged the VCR in, and plugged in the remote to it to test if it still worked or not after all these years and sure enough every function that was testable in the VCR's current running condition (rewind, fast forward and the play button) seem to work fine (not sure about the special effects, pause, record and audio dub functions as the VCR still can't play a tape properly yet) and the channel button doesn't seem to work right, as when I tried to change the channel with it it would randomly activate either the rewind, fast forward, or play functions instead or it would just shut the VCR off period (which I don't think its supposed to do those things which tells me that the circuit board probably needs cleaning from sitting for so long unused).