Fixing a tape-eating Delta Cassette Radio

[Mellis46]

For whatever nostalgic reason I have been listening to my tapes a lot more recently, both at home and in the car, apparently the Delta I retrofitted to the 90 has taken exception to this by firstly turning any "side 2" using the autoreverse function in a rendition by Alvin and the Chipmunks, and today refusing to relinquish the tape when it was time for a change!

No amount of fiddling around with a knife was going to sort it this time, out it came!



Def Leppard's Hysteria well and truly wedged in there



Fortunately I had a collection of Gamma radios from a few A4s that I had scavenged when I was in the market 18 months ago. Thought I'd swap the mechanism from one of these into the Delta to bring it back to life...



Notice they are pretty much the same inside, with the only difference being the CD changer controller inside the Delta. Fortunately entirely separate.

Four T8 screws hold the mechanism in, one at each corner, with 2 electrical connections left and right. Here it is out of its comfort zone:



Underneath:



Turns out the eject mechanism had failed thanks to a small white piece of plastic that had dislodged.

I applied a small amount of silicone grease to the cogs inside the replacement for a bit of lubrication and made sure the belt looked ok. Time for a quick test before putting the lid on etc:



In you go Def. Forwards....



Backwards...



No Chipmunks to be heard! Tape also ejects which is good!

Result!