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Sony TC-651 Rebuild

I picked up this 1970's vintage reel-to-reel tape deck from my friend who trades in antique radios. It was very dirty and in real need of restoration. I hesitated at first to take on another project, but since it wasn't missing any parts I decided to see what could be done with it.
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Front and rear views of the tape deck. Although it's a bit of a beast, it wasn't too difficult to work on since most of the PC boards plug in.

The heads and transport were filthy with tape oxide and crude. I purchased new drive belts, and rubber restorer for cleaning up the pinch roller.
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A couple of PCB's before replacing the electrolytics. I cleaned the boards and replaced all the electrolytic capacitors.


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The only real electronic issue in the machine was the bad snubbers for the relays. As seen in the left photo most are swollen from leakage.

The right photo shows the replacements made from capacitors and resistors.

One PCB that doesn't plug in is the headphone amp. which is squirreled away in a bottom corner and a bit hard to get at. The pics show before and after replacing the electrolytic capacitors.
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All the PCBs after be recapped and cleaned up.

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