[DMcMahon]

The Uher arrived last night, had been expecting it since Friday and I had a quick look late last night.

The copper piece is tilting down at about 45 degrees, not easy to see the tilt in the photo, but compared to the good photo of my copper piece at correct horizontal the difference can be seen.

Also the copper piece is virtually touching the pinch roller when idle, it does get quite close even on a good unit. I think the mounting of the piece is on a slotted hole so the adjustment is incorrect with it being too close to the pinch wheel.

When Play is selected the drive does not work until the left hand tape tension sensing lever is pushed and held to the right. The sensing lever is part of the tape tension and clutching system that Uher call "The Tape Tension Comparator".

For a few seconds I thought that there might a mechanical problem with the comparator but then realised that the tape was playing a lot faster than the 7.5 ips I had selected and the fast tape speed never changed for any of the 4 tape speeds. Then saw that the pinch wheel was stationary even though making good contact with the rotating capstan.

Found that the copper piece which was pushing the hum shield onto the PB head (as it is supposed to do) was also pushing back under tension against the pinch wheel stopping it from turning.

So a little later will adjust the copper piece for correct alignment and am hopeful that will sort the issues.

Difficult to see why this had resulted in severed tapes but it could not have been good for the tape driving fast speed against a stationary pinch wheel.