Elizabethan Tape Recorder

[sparkymike]

I have been sorting out a 1960's Elizabethan Tape deck with the BSR Deck.
Apart from a broken ECC83 and o/c on off switch, that side of the machine seems to be fine, even the magic eye is functioning at the moment, However the BSR TD2 deck has me a bit baffled.
There is a large rubber jockey wheel between the two tapes, but this does not seem to have any purpose. Is it possible that the spindle of the motor just to the left of it should have a rubber sleeve on it?
One other point, the main control lever will push forward and to the right, but not to the left.
I have no manual for the tape, so playing it by ear, so to speak.
I will post some photos later.
Mike.

[Steve_P]

Clean it all - the mechanism should move with the control on the right. If it does not do then the winds etc will not work. Dried grease at a guess.

Cheers,

Steve P.

[Tractorfan]

Hi,
If I recall, this is the BSR TD2 deck. The tape spindles should move a little from side to side when either fast forward or rewind was selected by the inverted 'T' control. This movement presses the rubber jockey wheel onto the motor spindle and transfers the motion to the appropriate spindle.
It sounds like old hardened grease is preventing the movement of the various parts and a good strip down, clean and relube is needed.
Hope this helps,
Cheers, Pete.

[Horris]

The BSR TD2 deck usually suffers from dried grease.It is a very simple deck to strip , clean and regrease.Once this is done you will probably find that it will be OK.
Also check the spring on the gate lever . They sometimes break.

Dave

[Nickthedentist]

TD2 manual here, as Trader sheet 1510: http://www.service-data.com/product.php/468/827/t10468

[sparkymike]

There does look like a long spring under the top plate ,to the left,which could be adrift. I guess I will have to remove said top plate and see what is jamming.
Will any bits fly out as I do this ? There are four black Phillips screws to remove I think. Tape heads will still be connected.
Thank for all feedback so far.
Apart from the usual rusty case catches, its in very good condition, so I hope there is nothing serious with the deck.
Mike.

[sparkymike]

By a process of elimination, working my way through the various levers I found that the right hand reel support casting was seized on the shaft that is riveted to the deck baseboard. A squirt of WD40 did not do anything helpful so I warmed up the die-cast reel carrier with a lighter and after a bit I detected some movement between shaft and carrier. Eventually I managed to remove the carrier completely and then I cleaned the shaft and greased it and replaced the parts and all now seems to be as it should be. To get to the carrier, the reel has to be removed and that is held on by a "c" clip under the baseboard. The reel belt can be hooked round the other reel centre or to the end post near the right reel while the part is fixed.
Mike.

[sparkymike]

I still have no idea what the arrowed spring is for. There is just a plain end at bottom end and top end is secured by the black screw. It is "L" shaped.
I can not find it on the BSR manual.
See thumbnail.
I am wondering if it has been replaced by previous person but in wrong position.
Mike,

[david freeman]

The colour of the spool carriers suggests that the deck is the 3 speed TD10, unless they have been changed at some time.

[sparkymike]

Hi David,
Yes it is a three speed deck. I did not know a TD 10 existed.
I did find that with this deck, which also has the amplifier fixed to it, you have to be very careful when you replace it into the case as some of the wires on the pots can be bent back, so that they could then short out to chassis.
The magic eye wires on its base are also very close to chassis ,but there is provision on the plastic control plate to lock it into position.
All in all I found that the build quality was very good and must have a look in the loft for some tapes to see how it sounds.
Mike.

[Tractorfan]

Hi,
I though TD10 too, the TD2 has only one jockey wheel with a rubber tyre and die-cast centre between the spool holders. (Incidentally, the TD2 jockey wheel is the same as that fitted to many BSR record decks.)
Cheers, Pete.

[david freeman]

Hi Mike. I think your recorder is the LZ 32/34 model. It should sound pretty good, as it has a large 9 X 5 inch speaker, and separate bass and treble controls.

[sparkymike]

Hi David,
Yes you are right. The model type is printed on the amp.section control plate.
There is also a serial number plate on the rear of the cabinet giving Serial number and voltage.
Yes the speaker does give good sound, when I was in my teens, we plugged a guitar into an earlier version of this tape player to use it as an amplifier and it sounded pretty good.
Mike.

[sparkymike]

Well I managed to borrow a take up reel and a pre-recorded tape from my elderly neighbour and glad to say that playback works fine. However if I plug in the mike which came with the recorder, and press the record button while tapes are stationary, I get a motor boating type of sound which can be seen on the magic eye as large fluctuations. Any quick clues here ?
Mike.

[Welsh Anorak]

It's probably a dirty record/play swith. A dose of switch cleaner and a few swift actuations of the switch should do the trick.
I've just serviced a TD10. Apart from the swinging levers below the spools (a hair dryer works wonders here) the speed selector arm pivot can be stiff. It's a bit awkward to free off as you need to remove the head/fuction plate to get to the arm pivot. If stiff the jockey wheel won't jump onto the stepped motor spindle reliably.
Glyn

[julie_m]

Seconded on the record-play switch -- they are the root of much evil. In this kind of price-engineered, home entertainment recorder, the R-P switch pretty much rewires half the machine, repurposing the output stage as the bias / erase oscillator. A lot of connections pass through it, so it can cause a lot of problems.

If giving the switch a really, really good clean does not help, you might have to start replacing capacitors and any out-of-tolerance resistors one at a time, testing after each one to make sure you have not made it worse by miswiring the part you last touched.

[sparkymike]

Well making slow progress and checking out the wafer switch and so far, three pairs of contacts are zero ohms so no problem there. I have one more set to check on the rear wafer. In the R &T 1971 servicing book page 216, it shows the circuit for the LZ 32 ,but not sure of the destination of the two wires at the bottom of the page labeled A and B. There is also a point marked C on the right side of the circuit. (Test point ?)
Mike.

[Station X]

Just a guess, but perhaps points A, B and C went to the superimpose or track selector switch, mentioned in the text, which is not shown on the diagram?

[sparkymike]

Hi Graham,

That was my thoughts as well, re. superimpose switch and diagram. It turned out that the above switch was not latching correctly, but a squirt of switch cleaner has cured the problem.

All working now except the mike. I have another mike available, but will have to make up a 1/4" jack to phono adaptor to try it. Magic eye moves when I ground the phono socket, so machine is probably OK now, apart from the mains on off switch/500 K tone control. Not sure where I will get a new one of them.

Thanks for all advice, Mike.

[Edward Huggins]

It took us up to Post #10 to establish what kind of deck this has! Always best to ask for photos at the earliest opportunity. I can see that I'm not the only one going down blind alleys based on inaccurate assumptions....