[DMcMahon]

Cleaned the heads (pretty clean already) and general tape path area, also sprayed contact cleaner on the Play/Record switch and exercised it by selecting Record (selecting record also automatically selects Play).

Reassembled and it is still working well on playback, sounds pretty good actually with a fair bit of volume available.

Did test recording using the internal microphone and it worked fine. Still to check external microphone and line recording.

Cannot explain why the original problem, can only assume a bad connection somewhere that went bad during shipping, hopefully it will stay good now, time will tell.

It was all reassembled by the time I read Ben's post 6, next time I look inside I will check out his suggestions.

David