Sony TC377 Reel to Reel.....
I couldn't help myself
I bought an r2r machine.
A fairly entry level machine, I didn't want to spend a great deal of money on one initially, but I didn't want a dog either.
I bought a Sony TC 377 after researching the usual suspects like Akai's, Teac's, Revox's et cetera.
I didn't want to be trying to find a speed change collar for a 4000ds, or dealing with potentially dodgy heads on the older Sony machines like the 355 which are apparently made of a blend of chocolate and sawdust. The ferrite and ferrite heads on the 377 are pretty robust, and the machine has spares such as belts available pretty easily.
The one I bought cost me 200 quid, but looked in very good cosmetic condition, and wasn't a loft find.
And had been tested and was running and making the required noises.
The number of machines I looked at at the price point that were untested was surprising, I wasn't going to take a punt on those as I hadn't a clue what I was doing......
I bought it on a whim..... sue me........
However, if I were selling something of this ilk, I'd have got hold of a tape and tested it...
It just looked so cool I had to have one.
I'll also be able to record my daughter playing her guitar too which will be really nice to do. When I get round to getting a microphone.
This is what I found in the box
I bought an r2r machine.
A fairly entry level machine, I didn't want to spend a great deal of money on one initially, but I didn't want a dog either.
I bought a Sony TC 377 after researching the usual suspects like Akai's, Teac's, Revox's et cetera.
I didn't want to be trying to find a speed change collar for a 4000ds, or dealing with potentially dodgy heads on the older Sony machines like the 355 which are apparently made of a blend of chocolate and sawdust. The ferrite and ferrite heads on the 377 are pretty robust, and the machine has spares such as belts available pretty easily.
The one I bought cost me 200 quid, but looked in very good cosmetic condition, and wasn't a loft find.
And had been tested and was running and making the required noises.
The number of machines I looked at at the price point that were untested was surprising, I wasn't going to take a punt on those as I hadn't a clue what I was doing......
I bought it on a whim..... sue me........
However, if I were selling something of this ilk, I'd have got hold of a tape and tested it...
It just looked so cool I had to have one.
I'll also be able to record my daughter playing her guitar too which will be really nice to do. When I get round to getting a microphone.
This is what I found in the box
As you can see, it was a nice tidy unit, came with an old tape, and a plastic take up reel. A little dusty, but in very fair cosmetic condition.
Problem was.........
It didn't work.
Lots of swearing was heard.
It would fast forward and rewind, the auto stop worked, the tape sense wire worked perfectly ,and was damped as it dropped.
But it wouldn't play. It would barely rewind at first, but it seemed to sort itself out on its own.
When play was engaged I could hear the drive engaging with something, but not engaging the reel table. Not knowing exactly how it worked, I presumed there was either an idler that was directly engaged by the motor or a belt driven idler was moved into place by the mech, but whatever it was, 'it don't work'. Which was really rather galling and disappointing.
I bought this particular one because it was tested as working. And I don't doubt that it was when it left the seller, but it arrived as a 200 quid ornament.
Some emails went backward and forward between the seller and myself, who was a very nice chap and agreed to take it back.
The question was, did I want to keep it and fix it, given its very very good cosmetics, or send it back.........
I had a decision to make.
Well.
I gave it one last try before boxing it back up, no joy.
A little bitter and disappointed, I gave the tape speed control a few sharp, vicious, resentful clicks between the speeds, and there was a big clunk. Something dropped into alignment.
It played.
The transport was abit noisy, various squeaks, clunks and whirrs, but it played.
I plugged it into the amp and it made sounds.
I panicked and thought it was still broken initially, as no noise came out, until I flicked the monitor switches.
What came out of it was not mantovani, andy williams, pat boone, or even kajagoogoo, which I half expected from the old tape, instead it was some sort of orchestral piece, but it also had moogs or something similar on it. Some sort of rather interesting classical fusion..... if thats a thing.
The tape also had a hand written sticker on it that said 'quad sq 1a,' so presumably its been done from a cd4 record.
I couldn't sit and listen to it because the kids were on teams doing their online lessons, but the short blast I did get was very encouraging.
Especially the bass end.....
As you can probably gather, I decided to keep it.
Here it is without its face
Problem was.........
It didn't work.
Lots of swearing was heard.
It would fast forward and rewind, the auto stop worked, the tape sense wire worked perfectly ,and was damped as it dropped.
But it wouldn't play. It would barely rewind at first, but it seemed to sort itself out on its own.
When play was engaged I could hear the drive engaging with something, but not engaging the reel table. Not knowing exactly how it worked, I presumed there was either an idler that was directly engaged by the motor or a belt driven idler was moved into place by the mech, but whatever it was, 'it don't work'. Which was really rather galling and disappointing.
I bought this particular one because it was tested as working. And I don't doubt that it was when it left the seller, but it arrived as a 200 quid ornament.
Some emails went backward and forward between the seller and myself, who was a very nice chap and agreed to take it back.
The question was, did I want to keep it and fix it, given its very very good cosmetics, or send it back.........
I had a decision to make.
Well.
I gave it one last try before boxing it back up, no joy.
A little bitter and disappointed, I gave the tape speed control a few sharp, vicious, resentful clicks between the speeds, and there was a big clunk. Something dropped into alignment.
It played.
The transport was abit noisy, various squeaks, clunks and whirrs, but it played.
I plugged it into the amp and it made sounds.
I panicked and thought it was still broken initially, as no noise came out, until I flicked the monitor switches.
What came out of it was not mantovani, andy williams, pat boone, or even kajagoogoo, which I half expected from the old tape, instead it was some sort of orchestral piece, but it also had moogs or something similar on it. Some sort of rather interesting classical fusion..... if thats a thing.
The tape also had a hand written sticker on it that said 'quad sq 1a,' so presumably its been done from a cd4 record.
I couldn't sit and listen to it because the kids were on teams doing their online lessons, but the short blast I did get was very encouraging.
Especially the bass end.....
As you can probably gather, I decided to keep it.
Here it is without its face
Now to get the faceplate off looks easy enough, take all the control knobs off and take out the 4 visible screws. Not quite.
There are 3 other screws to take out which aren't immediately apparent. The tape head cover needs to come off, and the 2 pins it sits on need to be unscrewed as they go through into the chassis. There is also another screw which is barely visible, it is under the heads, just to the left of the centre of the large chromed plastic part of the fascia.
And oddly, the little spun aluminium part of the pause lever needs to come off but its a left hand thread. Don't heave on it thinking it's a normal thread or you will break something.
After ordering in some isopropyl and about a million cotton buds for cleaning everything, a new belt set, and some rubber renue for the idlers and pinch roller, it spent a week on my workbench.
When all that turned up, I spent a rather pleasurable and productive afternoon fixing it.
I found out what the initial problem was, and what the big 'clonk' was when I was rather nasty to the speed control.
The mech is quite clever in how one motor spinning at a single speed performs all the functions.
At the top of the machine between the 2 reel tables there are a pair of idlers. The right hand reel table is driven anticlockwise by a belt from the flywheel whose bearing shaft doubles as the capstan. The pinch roller comes forward and up to rest on this shaft with the tape inbetween.
The flywheel has 2 drive surfaces, which are driven by an idler which moves forward and backward, to 3 fixed positions. These positions correspond with 3 steps on the motor pulley, and 2 steps on the flywheel, giving 3 speeds
So I stripped it and rebuilt all 3 idlers and used lithium grease for the shafts, and fitted a complete set of belts. To get at the longer flywheel to reel table belt, the plate with the heads on must be moved. This means disconnecting the pause rod and removing several mounting screws. The screws are obvious as they look different to the other ones on the plate, I think there are either 4 or 5. Can't remember off the top of my head. What isn't so obvious is that in order to move the plate, you need to take out the bottom right hand machine screw that holds the mech into the cabinet. The big shiny one on the side. This foxed me for a while until I poked around with a torch and noticed it. When you move the plate, be careful as the head wiring will still be attached. Go steady. This will also give you access to the idler wheel too to remove it.
When you take the old belts out give everything a clean with isopropyl, blow out all the old crap with compressed air, and grease or lube all the pivots you can see. Everything comes apart pretty intuitively, so go through and lube anything that looks like it should be lubed, remove all old grease you see and replace it with fresh.
The initial problem it had was with the speed change control.
It has a rotating plastic ramp that pushes the idler wheel forward, (towards the front face of the machine) or allows it to go backwards (towards the back of the machine) under spring pressure as its rotated. The idler arm itself slides on a pair of rods. The arm was stuck on one of the rods so it was not able to move backwards under spring pressure when the cam surface was turned.
The clonk was it momentarily freeing up and dropping back under the spring pressure. Because it was stuck, and the articulated part of the linkage which allows it to move left and right into the correct position the engage the flywheel and motor pulley was also stuck, the rest of the mech moved and trapped it in place where it wasn't touching any drive surface at all. A clean out of all the old grease and some new lube was all it needed
So it now goes at 3 speeds.
There was huge slack in all the belts apart from the tape counter belt which was in bits in the bottom so all have been replaced, all the drive surfaces were cleaned with IPA, the heads and tape path were cleaned with IPA, and all the idlers and pinch roller were cleaned with IPA then treated with rubber renue.
Which stinks.
It was actually a nice job to do and to figure out how it worked.
There are 3 other screws to take out which aren't immediately apparent. The tape head cover needs to come off, and the 2 pins it sits on need to be unscrewed as they go through into the chassis. There is also another screw which is barely visible, it is under the heads, just to the left of the centre of the large chromed plastic part of the fascia.
And oddly, the little spun aluminium part of the pause lever needs to come off but its a left hand thread. Don't heave on it thinking it's a normal thread or you will break something.
After ordering in some isopropyl and about a million cotton buds for cleaning everything, a new belt set, and some rubber renue for the idlers and pinch roller, it spent a week on my workbench.
When all that turned up, I spent a rather pleasurable and productive afternoon fixing it.
I found out what the initial problem was, and what the big 'clonk' was when I was rather nasty to the speed control.
The mech is quite clever in how one motor spinning at a single speed performs all the functions.
At the top of the machine between the 2 reel tables there are a pair of idlers. The right hand reel table is driven anticlockwise by a belt from the flywheel whose bearing shaft doubles as the capstan. The pinch roller comes forward and up to rest on this shaft with the tape inbetween.
The flywheel has 2 drive surfaces, which are driven by an idler which moves forward and backward, to 3 fixed positions. These positions correspond with 3 steps on the motor pulley, and 2 steps on the flywheel, giving 3 speeds
So I stripped it and rebuilt all 3 idlers and used lithium grease for the shafts, and fitted a complete set of belts. To get at the longer flywheel to reel table belt, the plate with the heads on must be moved. This means disconnecting the pause rod and removing several mounting screws. The screws are obvious as they look different to the other ones on the plate, I think there are either 4 or 5. Can't remember off the top of my head. What isn't so obvious is that in order to move the plate, you need to take out the bottom right hand machine screw that holds the mech into the cabinet. The big shiny one on the side. This foxed me for a while until I poked around with a torch and noticed it. When you move the plate, be careful as the head wiring will still be attached. Go steady. This will also give you access to the idler wheel too to remove it.
When you take the old belts out give everything a clean with isopropyl, blow out all the old crap with compressed air, and grease or lube all the pivots you can see. Everything comes apart pretty intuitively, so go through and lube anything that looks like it should be lubed, remove all old grease you see and replace it with fresh.
The initial problem it had was with the speed change control.
It has a rotating plastic ramp that pushes the idler wheel forward, (towards the front face of the machine) or allows it to go backwards (towards the back of the machine) under spring pressure as its rotated. The idler arm itself slides on a pair of rods. The arm was stuck on one of the rods so it was not able to move backwards under spring pressure when the cam surface was turned.
The clonk was it momentarily freeing up and dropping back under the spring pressure. Because it was stuck, and the articulated part of the linkage which allows it to move left and right into the correct position the engage the flywheel and motor pulley was also stuck, the rest of the mech moved and trapped it in place where it wasn't touching any drive surface at all. A clean out of all the old grease and some new lube was all it needed
So it now goes at 3 speeds.
There was huge slack in all the belts apart from the tape counter belt which was in bits in the bottom so all have been replaced, all the drive surfaces were cleaned with IPA, the heads and tape path were cleaned with IPA, and all the idlers and pinch roller were cleaned with IPA then treated with rubber renue.
Which stinks.
It was actually a nice job to do and to figure out how it worked.
Here you can see the flywheel, new belts, rubber renue treated idlers and the already replaced motor run capacitor at the top. This will need replacing, apparently they always do. At least I didn't have to, I didn't have one in that was the right value.
I nailed it back together after cleaning everything in sight, and sat looking at it for a while with a stupid grin.
I nailed it back together after cleaning everything in sight, and sat looking at it for a while with a stupid grin.
Oooooh,
This thing sounds nice.
The tape it came with is a mix of stuff, it played an acoustic version of its too late baby by Carly Simon, followed by a classical waltz of some description.
Christ knows what it played after that
I didn't get the hiss which I was expecting, and I still haven't degaussed the heads, just cleaned them with IPA. The degausser I ordered is still on back order......
It then playing a weird instrumental easy listening version of pretty things by David Bowie
Someone had odd musical taste.
Even given the strangeness, it sounds lovely.
It's worse than my JBE direct drive for not being able to stop watching it... especially with the Sony type R-7MB 'telephone dial' take up reel I managed to get hold of in with some other old tapes I bought
Chuffed with that
It plays and records beautifully, and I'm glad I kept it. It was something of a learning experience to fix it properly as I had never even seen an R2R in the flesh when I bought it.
I want another one now........
It did throw me one last curveball, the spark supressor cap went
This thing sounds nice.
The tape it came with is a mix of stuff, it played an acoustic version of its too late baby by Carly Simon, followed by a classical waltz of some description.
Christ knows what it played after that
I didn't get the hiss which I was expecting, and I still haven't degaussed the heads, just cleaned them with IPA. The degausser I ordered is still on back order......
It then playing a weird instrumental easy listening version of pretty things by David Bowie
Someone had odd musical taste.
Even given the strangeness, it sounds lovely.
It's worse than my JBE direct drive for not being able to stop watching it... especially with the Sony type R-7MB 'telephone dial' take up reel I managed to get hold of in with some other old tapes I bought
Chuffed with that
It plays and records beautifully, and I'm glad I kept it. It was something of a learning experience to fix it properly as I had never even seen an R2R in the flesh when I bought it.
I want another one now........
It did throw me one last curveball, the spark supressor cap went
Sod it, I just cut it out for now until I can get a replacement and put up with the thump when I turn it on.......
Onwards!
Onwards!