"Farmer Bill" wrote in message
...

I bought a used AM/FM/Cassette deck for my car. Unfortunately, the
heads, capstans, and pinch rollers were filthy. A cleaning tape barely
made a dent in the grime, so I cleaned everything gently with Q-tips and
rubbing alcohol. But there is still visible corrosion on the tape head,
causing playback to sound muffled (in one direction only; in the other
direction, the music sounds fine; it's a reversible deck). I have run
the (wet) cleaning tape through the machine about 15 times, to no
avail.

Does anyone know of a safe method to remove corrosion from audio
cassette tape heads? Not sure if I'm savvy enough to try to remove the
tape head from my old player and put it in the new player. Maybe I just
need to buy another used deck from a more reputable seller.

Many thanks.


Farmer Bill

When the heads are that badly contaminated, it's virtually impossible to get
them clean without a small degree of scratching occuring. I usually use a
plastic scraper to get the bulk off. The bit of a ball-point pen cap that
clips over your pocket is usually good for it. Sometimes, with stubborn
cases, some wadding-type metal polish will shift the oxide, but I'm afraid
that occasionally, the oxide / corrosion is so firmly attached, that you
just have to go for it and use a metal scraper, such as a blunt scalpel
blade. It does leave some light scratching to the head surface if it's a
standard metal type, but the chances are that this will be insignificant
compared to the performance degradation it will already have at that age,
from basic head wear. I'm not sure that rubbing alcohol is really pure
enough for electronics use. It should really be 99.7% ( electronics grade )
isopropyl alcohol.

Arfa