As part of my latest project, I am on to the Beocord 5500 (Beomaster and CD working fine now).  Just as background, picked up the whole stack including 5500 remote for $100US knowing that nothing worked.  Plugged it in last night and found the drawer belt broken.  No big deal, expected that.  Stuck in a tape and it started to play, but the tape motor made an awful noise that would stop if you tapped on it.  Assumed it was slop in a 20+ yr old belt.

Went today to my local repair shop and picked up new belt for drawer as well as tape transport.  When I pop in a tape and hit play, The tape moves for about 1 second and then quits.  I have the cover off and can see that the motor (and belt) appears to be spinning just fine.

Sorry to start a new thread if this has been addressed, but I could not find.

Any thoughts???

Thanks - Brian

Also, I should note that for that one second of tape movement, it actually plays music.

Take off the tape spindles, clean the axles and inside of the spindles, put some lubricant on it ( make sure you use libricant that van be used on plastic) and reassemble the spindles. In most cases the original lubricant for the tape spindles has dried out which causes the spindles to have too much friction.

In some Beocord 5500 (and 6500, 7000) tape mechanisms there is a small belt running a tape-movement sensor. If the belt is missing there won't be any indication of tape movement to the electronics and the deck will stop. However I would have thought the deck should try reversing the tape head and playing the other side, rather than going to stop (or even standby)?

Attached is a picture of my Beocord 5500 from a previous repair. I actually had to replace the whole tape mechanism (due to a damaged pb. head) and while the replacement was from another BC5500, it was a very different mechanism (compatible, anyway).

Can't really remember how it looks/works on the other mechanism.

The mechanism in the picture is a BeoCord 7000 mechanism and was never used in BeoCord 5500 from factory. So I guess that the other mechanism is in the BeoCord 5500.

Blackrix,  Thanks for the info.  How does one remove the spindles.  I only have the one 5500 to mess with and do not want to break it in the process.

Thanks!

OK, never mind.  After looking at ther service manual, I realized there were those tiny locking clips which I gently removed.  You were right, the posts were more like glue than lubricated.  Cleaned, re-lubed and re-assembled.  Still no joy.  Then I got a flash and put the old belt back on.  Works like a dream.  Seems the only belt my local guy was PRB FRY17.2 which has a wall thickness of .040" which must be too thick as the original was about 1/2 that thickness.

Time to contact Dillen.