Tascam Repair Journal #2 414 MKII

This is the second 414 MKII that I repaired. It was absolutely filthy when it came in, and had problems with fast forward and rewind.

The first order of business was dealing with the transport issues. After removing the transport, I replaced the belts for the tape counter, and the reel assembly that drives the fast forward and rewind functions.

Next up was cleaning the rest of the internals. This unit had been stored poorly and was full of what looked like rodent droppings. Gross! Plus lots of dust had accumulated inside. All of that stuff was cleaned out, and then the faders and switches got cleaned with Deoxit F5.

I always check the solder connections on the jacks when I have one of these machines open. This one had a few questionable solder connections, so I reflowed them.

All the knobs, fader caps, and switch caps got scrubbed, and the front faceplate got scrubbed clean. The tape heads also got cleaned. After reassembly, all the controls, jacks, routing, etc. got tested and were working well.