otari mx5050 8 track old tape slowing down

[brian beattie]

Hello all
I haven't dropped by in a while and I need some help. I've got some 13 year old tapes of my band on 1/2" 8 track that I want to tranfer to my adat hd24. Hoping hopefully that my old tape would function fine, I borrowed an otari mx5050 and started rewinding one of the tapes by playing it backwards. The tape ran slower and slower, and I finally stopped the tape and recleaned the heads and tape guides after about 7 minutes. The heads had a touch of schmutz on them, but a couple of the tape guides had quite a bit of krud on them. So, I just flipped the tape over and played it off the reel (It sounded quite good, even all slowed down and getting slower...) Also, as I played the 7 minutes or so of that tape off of the reel, I flipped the "hi-low" output switches on the individual channels on the back of the machine to optimize my levels, and half of the switches didn't do anything, and the others were intermitant...
SO, I figure I need to bake my tapes. I know someone with one of those big fruit and vegetable dehydraters.
Help me troubleshoot my 2 technical issues.
1) the tape machine slowing down... apparently, this machine usually works fine, although it is not maintained by an "analog" person. I believe the slight stickyness of my tape is causing this, but I'm wondering if the motors, especially the capstan motor is running... uhh.... robustly? Is there anything I could do... (lube the capstan motor??) that might give it a little more oomph, so it might work better after my tapes are baked?
2) the intermitant "hi-low" output switch on the back panel...Can I spritz these things with something to clean them up? They're black plastic square toggle switches. Some of them don't seem to work at all, and sometimes when I tapped on the back panel in the general area of the "hi-lo" toggle switches, elements would get intermitantly louder or quieter.
I'm not sure if I should look for a better maintained machine to minimize my problems, or if I can slog through with this one... Anyone have any experience with one of these babies and wanna share some tips??
brian

[brianroth]

A tape with bad "sticky shed" can certainly make a machine grind to a halt, so that isn't surprising.

As for oiling the capstan bearing, all of the smaller Otari machines require it to keep the motor from seizing up. Otari shipped oil with each machine, but it's probably been misplaced eons ago. A good substitute is turbine oil under the "zoom spout" brand which is avaialbe at many/most Ace Hardware stores. The Ace Hardware SKU is 12054; the UPC is 650760236548 (012054).

As for the slide switches, many times they will come back to life if you rapidly exercise them back and forth a few dozen times. If that doesn't work, open the machine so you can physically get to them and you'll see that each end is open (and you can see the machanism moving back and forth. A VERY small spritz (ie, NOT a thorough douching <g>) with something lile Caig DeOxit should restore them after you again exercise the switch after the quick spritz.

Bri

[brianroth]

I forgot to mention one thing re. capstan oiling. There is a round disk surrounding the capstan shaft that unscrews to allow access to the top of the capstan assembly. Remove the dust cap so you can add several drops (again, don;t go nuts!) to the felt washer.

Bri

[psychicoctopus]

good luck brian. I dig your recordings!

[nipsy]

have you tried baking your tapes?

[Old-Draftsman]

"otari mx5050 8 track old tape slowing down"

That's what happened to my tape deck recently. It just slowed to a stop and I almost went nuts trying to figure why, then, I cleaned the heads and tape path... WOW! where did all that gunk come from? Surely not my new tape.

I had recently found a "good deal" on some Ampex 1/4" and it turned out not to be such a good deal when I found that it was OLD 456, sticky and jambed up my machine. (I honestly didn't know 456 was a troubled tape) So what do you do? I scratched my watch, and wound my ass and "recycled" 10 unused reels of 456. $10.00 a reel for 1/4" x 10-1/2" sealed in the box (found in the storeroom). What the hell, a hundred bucks? I can make that up in 6 months or so.

I was lucky, I really did get a good deal on the tape it turns out. I mentioned the bad tape to my tape supplier when I went to buy some fresh tape and he INSISTED on replacing the tape with some fresh Quantagy form his last order and would not accept any money. He said if he had known it was bad he would have tossed it and he apologized for my inconveinence.

Sorry for the ramble, I just wanted to praise honesty and testify on the need for maintenance.

[audioez]

lol, I own a couple of MX5050 1/2" machines...I had a simmilar problem; I found that my pinch roller became contaminated, almost like a gummy bear. One screw removes it, and you can get a replacment part on the internet if you search on google. ez

DEMAG FIRST. KEEP ALL PARTS OF THE TAPE PATH CLEAN...