Four-track acting up in an odd way (sticky shed problems?)

[masonpitzel]

So I just started playing around with the Teac A-3440 my band purchased the other day, and there's definitely something wrong with it but I have no idea what.

Here's what goes down:
- Play. Tape starts playing back extremely fast -- just marginally slower than FF. Freq response is limited as well. It sounds mainly a lot like listening to a fast-fowarding tape on repro. (Regardless of whether I put it on 7.5 or 15 ips, this happens.)
- Reverse, to slow the tape before stopping. While it's reversing the sound gets clearer and louder. You know what a reversing tape sounds like; this sounds like that. (This is the part where I get a little excited because things seem like they're working how they should). Stop.
- Play. Tape seizes up immediately. From here I can FF or reverse, and hear things on repro through the headphones in the meantime, but I can't play the tape. Whenever I hit Play, the machine just instantly goes "chnk" and stops.

I think I've eliminated sticky shed as a cause, as I cleaned the heads and tried two different reels that I know to be shed-free, and the same thing happened. On top of that, I can play the tape pretty much all the way through if I don't stop and re-start -- it just plays retardedly fast, like 50 ips or something. If I stop and re-start, it'll seize, and won't play again til I put a different reel on.

Anyone have any ideas?

[masonpitzel]

Okay, so now it won't play at all. Just ff and rev. Definitely thinking the path is all gummed up from sticky shed. Can anyone confirm?