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Old 28th Feb 2018, 3:57 pm   #3
ricard
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Lund, Sweden
Posts: 1,631
Default Re: Grundig TK14 Help

The drive belt for the flywheel tends to become slack over time, causing loss of friction and slipping as Tractorfan said. Replacement is a bit awkward as the whole head assembly must be lifted to get at the belt, and a couple of linkages temporarily unhooked. It's not terribly difficult though, but care is needed .

As a short-term measure, if the belt is in otherwise good condition (not cracked or deteriorated in some other way), one can cut off an inch or so of the belt, and glue the ends with superglue, then sand down the edges to get a smooth joint.

Regarding rewind, there is a rubber rim on the left hand reel table, which gets hard with age. I've had luck sanding down the surface, exposing new rubber. It's also possible to increase the tension between the reel and the motor hub by bending the arm to the left of the reel table where the spring providing the tension is located.

All this of course requires opening the machine, although it's fairly easy on this model, just four screws on top that must be loosened. Be very cautious if you run the machine in this state though, there is something in the order of 250V DC present on the connections to the Magic Eye valve at the front, and potentially even more dangerous is the mains switch behind the tone control where the contacts are (rather unusually I would say) completely exposed.
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