[MeerKat]

It's not as bad as some I believe, with 7" reels it will do a whole tape but is very slow toward the end, with 5" reels it stops when it's down to about 1/3" of tape on the feeding reel. I have stripped, cleaned and relubed everything bar the reel drive motors so it's almost certainly weak motors. I've tried putting a switch in series with the resistor/diode across the supply reel motor, that helps a bit but when the reel is going slow the resistor/diode will not be applying much breaking to the reel anyway.

There is a video on utube (Akai GX77 fast spool relay mod by Nick Adams 25 minutes long roughly) about a relay mod, you get a good view of the circuit but watch very carefully when he runs the machine post mod, several times when he stopped the machine from fast winding the tape momentarily went slack and then tightened up with a jerk so more work required me thinks, maybe a lower voltage to the motor, needs investigating more, I can see tapes being damaged as it stands.

As I say I will be interested in the Akai mod and I wouldn't mind a list of the caps to change either.