Own a CT-F7070 (same as 7272 but without wooden side panels). Changed CrO2 and Fe-Cr lamps by 3mm warm light leds. The lamps (24VDC) , one of them, I use now for lightning the tape counter. REC and Dolby indicator are replaced by mat colored red and blue 5mm leds. Replaced the pinchroller 13mm/8mm/2mm , costs € 8,95. Belts are on their way to me. Cost € 13,95. Love to give my Pioneer SA-7500 (no MkII), TA-7500 (no MkII), CT-F7500, SE-305 headphone and 4way HPM 60 (1st generation) speakers a 2nd brand-new life. Hello from Marck, Amsterdam, former Betamax/Video8 and Hi8 service man for Sony NL. O jey, a 2nd CT-F7070 is also under its way. One Warning in general : don't cut you're fingers on the sharp edges of the chassis (after uppercase is removed). 😊

I’m about to tackle one of these a ct f 8282 very similar glad u made the video thanks

Great video! Learning A lot! I should have this deck at my house.... Time to mess with it😉

To adjust azimuth without an alignment (usually 10Khz) tape, you can always put a pair of headphones on and listen-in for the best and highest treble content.

I really admire your tenacity and perseverance in bringing this venerable old machine back to life. Amazing that a dedicated repair kit was still available! There is so much complexity in these old machines, and as you say, they're all unique; it's kinda incredible that they were sold as consumer-level devices. The memory feature on this one is really cool. I think you may be well advanced on the curve of diminishing returns with this deck. Bringing it back to factory-level performance would be satisfying for sure, but getting really solid performance in playback and with all functions operational is a HUGE result in an of itself.

Fucking hell! This is the reality of a restoration job - you made it real. I wish you'd posted this a week ago because I bought a second-hand Sony TC-K555ESII and your experience here worries me greatly! I admire your perseverance - knowing when to walk away and take a break is a valuable element of the restoration process. You often come back with new things to try, until you don't, and then you are done. Glad playback is reliable and the sound quality is pretty nice - it's a beautiful deck!

my dad has that deck was cream of the crop?? You good tech!!!!

Yep, just watching some of this again - you're not alone in partially bending the leaf switches, and forgetting to put certain belts back on! I've fixed many a deck, and I still do this, swearing at my dullard self all the way!

For my sins, I now have two of these decks. I'd prefer the CT-F9191, but that has a potential FF/RW clutch problem which is difficult to fix. And I say that as someone who pretty good at electronic/mechanical engineering. I actually cleaned the buttons on my CT-F7070 (almost the same as CT-F7272) with a damp cloth and metal polish - they came up a treat, like new ... well maybe 99.9% 'new'! ;o)

I am afraid it's me again. ;o) I noticed several days ago that the plastic mechanisms on my CT-F7070 were cracking around the pins that hold the RW/FF idler wheels/tyres etc. What drew my attention was that RW wasn't working, and that Stop was getting difficult to press!? I suspected that something had come away, and so opening up the transport I saw that the RW idler and axial pin were at the bottom of the mechanism. I thought about carefully micro-roughing up the effected areas and later applying Gorilla Glue (or JB Weld), and guess what? .... it worked a treat!!! Actually I did apply the Gorilla glue, I know it is not suitable for all plastics but it worked so well. If you have to do this at any time, be aware that the said glue does expand over time, but can be easily sanded later. At least I've preserved the Pioneer for more years. ;o) Might be worth opening yours up and taking a peek to see if all is well?

those old decks are really a labor of love. they lack the features and sound quality of the stuff from the 80s and 90s, but they look cool! i've also found they generally play older tapes that sound crappy in really hifi decks better. they kinda of smooth over the bumps or something

Cassette Decks: I've restored many, and yes, it is a game of patience, incrementally restoring one aspect then another. Not letting our emotions run away out of control. Of interest, the source of wow/flutter issues are puzzling; it's not just 'clean the heads, clean the pinch roller' etc. Many decks will sound good if carefully restored, and aligned. Despite the issues with this CT-F7272 deck, it sounds mechanically quite solid!?

Ahh, cassettes, (shaking head). I always had a love / hate (mostly hate) relationship with these things. Back in the day (late 80's early 90's), cassettes were the go to for a somewhat portable medium that you can record to. However, the low speeds did plague them with noise, and while you did have noise reduction, there was the issue of incompatibility when recording on one machine and playing back on another. The issue wasn't as bad with Dolby B. Then there were issues with the cassettes themselves when they aged. The highs would drift in and out, or you have dropouts. I had several different machines and the problems seemed to be the same with most of them. The dual capstan drive machines were better, but by the time I got to this point, I was already exposed to the wonderful sound of an open reel tape deck. At that point cassettes just wouldn't do anymore. However, open reel had its issues as well. They were more fiddly with the tapes, definitely not portable, they were expensive then and it did seem the writing was on the wall for future runs of new tape. Finally, aligning a machine wasn't for the faint of heart. Nor was replacing worn heads. So I got out of it as fast as I got into it. So when it came to analog sources, that left me with records. If you kept them clean and had a good cartridge on a decent turntable, they sounded better than cassettes any day. Portability is still a question, but they sounded great and were less fiddly than open reel. Given that these days, we have digital recording, and if I want to go analog, I still have records to listen to, I seriously doubt I would ever bother with a cassette deck again. There is a however. I was pretty fond of the Sony Elcaset performance and it looked to have a promising future, but alas, that format never took off.

You can't start by adjusting recording as you would then have no reference. You need a reference tape for playback to set playback level against. Only after that can you adjust recording to work with the set playback levels. These large (many poles) oxidised switches sure don't help however...

Maybe using FM white noise between stations with a mono Y-connector to adjust levels?

*Play/Record Multiswitch:* Yes De-Oxit and 'work it'! (I use Servisol Super 10, or equivalent here in the UK) *Playback Level Calibration:* Ideally use a full track calib tape, typically a 400Hz tone at Dolby Level (which is +2.7dB above old DIN standard '0VU'), then adjust said pots so that output = 10^(2.7/20)*1.07v or 1.46v (RMS). {This I've sourced the '1.07v' from the Service Manual, please do check this, it does seem quite high to me?} *Meter Calibration:* At this point adjust meters so that they rest at ~ 2.7dB above 0VU, ie Dolby Level. The DL symbol is there. *Record Calibration:* Varies for different tape sensitvities. Feed 333Hz .. 400Hz tone and adjust level at the user input so that the meters read '0' VU. Record and then playback the test and see how close PB is to '0' VU. Adjust internal pots so that PB rests at 0 VU. {Rec and PB does *not* have to be at 0 VU of course during this phase of overall calibration} Hope you don't mind me writing this, it's meant in good will! ;o) {Edited: forgot to include 'not', sorry about that)

I own a Deck that looks alot like this one in the video except it hasn't a wood case and other brand on it called ERRES

You are one smart dude. I'd never attempt what you're doing. But then I'm like a novice. I can DeOxIt and that's about it. I'm working on or about to work on a CT-F8282. Did you realize there's a memory stop buttin on the deck that when on the tape will rewind, FFand play will all stop shutting itself off at the memory setpoint?

Any advice for signal issues caused by the internal play/rec switch? Everyone says to just blast it with Deoxit… and it does crate crystal clear audio… but overnight it always goes back to fuzzy and staticy :(

Hi my name is Angelo I have a sick 1250 deck which needs tape head and a capstan motor and was wondering if you could help me find these components, I'm in Australia and came across your video on KZfaq..Regards Angelo

May I ask what is the actual specs (size) for the idler tire?

Wow .. I haven't you drop the f bomb like this... makes me not to want to ever attempt to repair a cassette deck. Way too much going on in that thing.. I have an old 8 track player-not sure if it works or not - i will be throwing that beast to the curb.

ФУ ЛОБКОВЫЙ ВОЛОС.