[ben]

These are amongst the last of the Sonys, perhaps the penultimate mech. As Michael says the sticky half load arm is not a problem on these.

Do make sure you remove that auto head cleaner arm to the right of the drum. The foam is likely to have perished and gone sticky, this can wreck the tape and even the heads.

Another fault I have had on these is the white idler assembly splitting and disintegrating. I still have a combo unit awaiting a donor! This would cause tape chewing and poor take up, you would hear it whining in fast wind if so. But let's not jump the gun until you have tried it out, hopefully the label was the only problem.