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How to replace rewind belt in 410 Cassette deck


oryan_dunn

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I've got the Hong Kong 410 without the handle. I bought a belt replacement kit with 4 belts from console5. I saw a few mentions of people having issues replacing the rewind belt. I couldn't find much on it, but I was able to successfully replace the rewind belt, and it wasn't that difficult, so I figured I'd post instructions and a few pictures to help other out.

 

Disassemble the 410 down to the player internals. Remove the circuit board, but I'd recommend against removing the tape heads. I now need to reset the azimuth, but I guessed and it loads tapes. If you need to remove the play head, just remove the screw on the right, and slide the play head out from the spring/washer/screw on the left.

 

Once you get down to the mechanical portion, the main belt, and the two that drive the counter are fairly easy to switch. The rewind belt is a little more interesting.

 

First, rotate the left spindle, pushing on the top to give a bit of slack. Use a small flatblade screwdriver to pull the belt up. Once the belt is freed from the left spindle, it'll still seem trapped around another pulley under the center of the deck.

 

Now, flip over the mechanical deck. On the left, there is a white plastic nut. Use a flat blade screwdriver to rotate the nut. It should then slide up and off the spindle.

 

With the nut off, you should be able to slide the white arm up and off the peg. At this point, you should be able to free the white arm, which has the smaller hidden spindle. There is a red cap that makes getting the old belt out and the new belt in a little interesting, But, once the new belt is wrapped around this spindle, you should be able to reverse the instructions to re-insert the arm, feeding the belt through to the other side. After the arm is reinstalled, flip the unit over and slide the belt around the left spindle.

 

After I did this, my deck seems to play and rewind perfectly. I didn't realize I shouldn't mess with the azimuth screw, so even though the deck seems to load most tapes fine, I really need to get an azimuth adjustment tape to dial it in.

 

The best advice is to go slow and don't force anything, take pictures as you go if you don't trust your memory.

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Edited by oryan_dunn
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  • 2 years later...

Very nice. I wish I had seen this six months ago when I tried to change mine out. I bent something in there and now nothing works.

I put it back in the attic in disgust. With this info, maybe I'll get it out and try again.

 

Thank you,

DavidMil

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  • 1 year later...
2 hours ago, rchennau said:

This was exactly the set of instructions I needed to replace the Atari 410 Cassette drive rewind belt which is the third smallest in size.  

I replaced it but there is now to much tension and the rewind mechanism does not spin.  More diagnosing.

Update: After a little jiggling I was able to loosen the tension. I also moved the round rubber ring around the spindle that connects to the main fly wheel.  That helped a lot.   Now I have an issue where the record button won't engage.  Looking at the mechanism it appears there is a latch that is not getting moved when the play button is engaged.   But that is a the topic of a different thread.  

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14 hours ago, _The Doctor__ said:

is the record tabs and notches on the cassette tape itself intact?

I forgot that part that the cassette tapes themselves would allow the record button to be pressed down.  In my testing it was without tapes.  Bonehead move of me.  Thank you. 

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Final update:  All belts replace however, there was a snag.  The reverse belt and more importantly the spindle and rocker arm mechanism are sitting an angle that prevents the spindle from turning.  I found that if I lift the arm up slightly then it would adjust the angle to be flush with the wheel.  Regrettably this prevented the locking cap for the arm to engage.  My solution?  I used the old belt to raise the arm to a height that made the system engage and then cut a cardboard stock paper to act as a pillar between the arm and the bottom of the circuit board to provide enough tension to keep the arm from popping off.   It works wonderfully.  It is a hack and I should probably figure out a better solution.  
It may be the rubber washer is to worn and needs to be replaced.  It could be time is the enemy of all things and I should be grateful my little hack works.    

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