We have two of these excellent machines in addition to our Sony APR 5003 and Studer A80′s. The Tascam BR-20 was Tascam’s last and top of the range 1/4 inch reel to reel tape machine and available in two track stereo and stereo with centre timecode option.

The capstan drive in the BR20 is belt driven by a wide belt. Both belts in our machines looked OK but we’ve replaced all roller bearings, belts and pinch rollers in both of our machines anyway as a matter of course. These parts are still available from Teac UK via Acoustic Services on 01-844-347600.

Below is a simple explanation of how to change the capstan belt.

1. Unplug machine from mains power and move to a strong stable base.
2. Remove cross head screws from the rear panel and lift plate off. Depending on the type of plug in your country you may not be able to remove it completely.
3. You’ll now be able to see the capstan motor and it’s control board attached to it.
4. Remove the 4 cross head screws and gently lift the analogue audio output board away from the machine as in the picture above.
5. We now need to remove the whole capstan motor assembly with the control board still attached. Remove the 4 cross head screws right at the front of the assembly, NOT the six nearest to you when looking at this image. 
6. Carefully unclip the 4 cable connectors from the motor control board. The other connector cannot be removed from the board and must be removed where it connects to the other board.
7. The whole assembly can now be lifted out from the machine. Be careful to not snag any cables and remember to unclip the black cable ties.
8. You’ll now be able to unclip the control board from the assembly by carefully compressing the black clips with some needle nose pliers.
   
9. Now remove the six cross head screws holding the capstan motor assembly together. This is the only way to remove and refit the capstan belt. There’s not enough room to do it any other way!
10. Now you can remove the old belt and capstan shaft. It’s a good idea to clean the capstan with IPA where the old belt has run and reapply a little grease to the bearing end of the capstan.
11. Fit your new belt and reassembly is the reverse of dissasembly! Be careful though to not drop the screws into regions you can’t get them out of – luckily there aren’t that many on this machine but a long magnetic screwdriver is very useful.. just don’t get it anywhere near the headblock and heads!
    

This is something you don’t see everyday! An almost unused and boxed 1/4″ 2 track reel to reel tape machine, a Tascam BR20 one of their highest quality machines sometimes installed with a Timecode head for broadcast and editing applications.

This machine somehow turned up at an IT Recycling centre in Essex but is now in much safer hands transferring tapes, in particular a very large archive of library music on 10.5″ NAB reels owned by Mood Media Ltd.

As you can see this machine is in it’s original box, with packaging and first look at the heads show almost no head wear but some nasty oxide that took a while to clean off.

This machine needed little work to bring it back to spec, a new capstan belt, pinch roller, tape tension and speed setting and a full calibration.
The capstan belt change is the subject of another blog post here..

I’ve had these belts sitting around for a few months now and they’ve finally come around on my to do list. Thinking this would be nice and easy like the Teac C-3x belts I whipped the cover off my 234 eager to put it back to work transferring those thousands of undiscovered bedroom gems that must be around in peoples’ cupboards.

Tascam 234 4 track tape transport

Looked nicely laid out and well constructed as all this old Tascam equipment seems to be. I thought I’d just take the transport out and it’d be easy. There are just two belts in the 234, the capstan belt and the belt that moves the transport up and down. This cam mode belt had stretched and come off and the capstan belt had pretty much disintegrated. Once I start I find it hard to stop and this isn’t a quick job the first time, you need to be methodical and patient, good screwdrivers help too.

Well here comes the process, it seems pretty daunting at first when you see how many boards, cables and bits you have to remove and disassemble to replace the belts.

(more…)