hey kids,
i recently acquired an ancient Ingersoll toploader VCR from round about 1982-3 i think. it still worked fine, upto 2 weeks ago,after i played, of all things,‘unbreakable’ with bruce willis in it.
you can put a video in, press play and it starts up, then stops a few seconds later. After taking off the casing and playing the tape again, what happens is, it winds round the little strut things to go across the large metal cylinder thats set at an angle, but then starts sliding off this and folding the tape, so a failsafe kicks in to prevent tape damage and stops the operation.
ive tried it with many different tapes, so its not that, nothing appears blocked or unable to move properly, so im stumped.
as i dont want to pay £60 for some guy to come to my house to try and fix it, anybody got any ideas how i can fix it myself?
or does it just need head cleaning?
its UK PAL system as well. and predates having a record button
help,
cheers
pauly t 
Ok…this should/could be a fix for less than 10 bucks yourself, or about 30 bucks by a pro.
Very common to have rubber belts fail in older vcrs, and as a result, different moving parts are not synched up.
Usually, a kit is available that replaces at least a belt and a plasctic wheel, maybe more. 80% off all the VCR repairs I’ve seen in my 15 years experience are just these parts.
It’s not so much a repair as it is maintenance since these are wearable parts.
Philster is probably on the mark here. The symptoms sound like a worn-out idler pulley (it’s the the pulley on the 4-5 cm arm under the middle of the tape carriage). You might start looking for a replacement at http://www.diyvcrparts.com/help.html . You’ll need the brand and model number first. If you can’t find it on that basis, you can take the rubber off the idler wheel and measure it, then look for a replacement on that basis. I should note that while some idlers are very easy to change, others are a cast-iron pain.
This thread wouldn’t be complete without a link to the sci.electronics.repair FAQ. Read the Samuel M. Goldwasser’s “Notes on the Troubleshooting and Repair of Video Cassette Recorders” section.
I would check that play belt, it’s usually the biggest one on the machine & accessed
only from the bottom by taking the plate off, but you never know. A fifty cent item, but $4 shipping 