[DMcMahon]

Despite trying various screwdrivers/bits including JIS I could not loosen the 3 remaining screws from the top panel, only ended up starting to chew the screw heads up, so gave that up as a bad job. There were an additional 3 screws (so 7 in total) securing the panel, these additional 3 I could undo.

Then found that by removing the Supply reel table I could then see the pin in question (where the instrument screwdriver is pointing in the second photo), I should have realised that earlier.

The pin is mounted to/part of a spring loaded lever that pivots around a screw, so nothing drives the pin/lever, it is the movement of the slider plate above that just pushes the pin out of the way against the spring tension of the lever.

The problem was that the lever (with the pin) would not move, it was stuck to the chassis by some black hard substance which initially I thought was some sort of Araldite. It looked like the small vertical piece of the lever had been repaired with Araldite (which I thought was strange) and the glue also having stuck the lever to the chassis.

After some firm persuasion managed to get the lever moving.

When I went to clean up the black residue that was stuck on the chassis, I discovered that the outside face of the vertical piece was sticky goo, then realised that it was a rubber brake pad that was decomposed with outside section being sticky and inside hard.

So need to find some small rubber pad to replace the brake pad.

With the lever freed up, now the Forward and Rewind push buttons push down a lot further, mechanically switching the rotary power switch and they also latch down. The latching mechanism is in the push buttons themselves.

Removed the sliding plate to clean off the old grease and relubricate. To remove it had to lift up the motor plate assembly, now can see that the drive belt is very slack so will need to be replaced. To lift up the motor plate had to unsolder a black wire (battery +ve output from the 3 x D cells assembly). When I went to unsolder the wire, the wire fell off before I touched it with the soldering iron, looks like it was very poorly soldered originally.

With the Take Up reel table removed can just see its brake pad that looks to be in better condition, cannot see it properly or its actuating lever without getting the top panel off.

So hopefully now can start making some progress.

David