Amanda Riphnykhazova wrote in message
...
I posted a while ago about an SV4000 which had suddenly stopped working when
the power supply died

I was told to flip burgers till I could pay for a new one and then carry on,
which seemed like good advice. Except that I found a used SV4000 on ebay for
a few bucks which was described as non-working but which did in fact work
fine and has continued to work for a year or so

This week, the picture started giving wavy vertical lines and flashing white
dots tearing away across the screen horizontally, which I take to mean the
heads are dying.

So I put its power supply into the otherwise working original SV4000 and it
powers up fine now. Except that on insertion of a tape, for some reason
(before I try to play) about a foot of tape spews out into the interior of
the unit.

Is this the standard idler wheel problem and does anyone know how I identify
the idler wheel please? It doesn't look like an RCA (etc) unit where the
idler is obvious. I have the whole other unit for spares now. I do know
that one can revive a worn idler with rubbing alcohol to get the rubber to
matte again for 6 months or so and that for a longer term repair, the idler
tyre can be turned around to present an unworn surface; if we are convinced
that this unit has an idler and that this problem is the idler.

Or with these symptoms, would I do better trying to move the head drum from
the older machine to the newer one and is this something which can be done
with a minimum of technical knowledge and no instrumentation?



++++

Find one of those kids plastic microscopes and remove the barrel. Cut back,
angled-in to the objective lens so you can lay it against the heads with the
barrel nearly vertical, assuming there is a gap somewhere to do so, and
visually inspect the heads, one may have a chip out of it or you can see
some crud or something sticking to one