Sony WM-F75 Walkman radio/cassette player repaired

[Phil G4SPZ]

I’ll start with some advice… if anyone asks you to repair one of these, politely decline!

An acquaintance asked me to look at his well-used Sony Walkman which was obviously suffering from a broken drive belt. In short, this job turned into an eighteen-month long nightmare, even with the aid of the excellent full service manual downloaded from www.freeservicemanuals.info

The old belt had turned to goo, involving dismantling the machine and removing the PCB to access the drive mechanism for cleaning. It is all held together with a miscellany of different tiny screws, typically 1.4mm diameter by 2.5mm long, as well as numerous sealing washers as the player is designed to be waterproof. Working on this is more akin to watch repair than audio. Eventual reassembly was a further nightmare, not helped by six months passing since I dismantled it.

However, it’s done, and after a quick clean-up of the tape head, capstans and pressure rollers, it plays beautifully now. Pity that the radio tuning scale had been lost years ago, as these 1980s models still command high prices.

I have to take my hat off to Sony for this fiendish miniaturised design. But never again!