I just hooked my radio up finally, after the previous owner disconnected it. I just got both front AND back speakers working, lol, and everything is great except for the tape player, which plays at like 1/10 of the speed it should be playing at, so its like RROOOOAAAARRR BBLLLLAAAARRRRGGGGG UURRRRGGGGLLLLEEEEE in this low pitched voice... What causes this and how do i fix it? The speed seems to be chosen at random, sometimes it plays almost normal, sometimes it slows to an absolute crawl... its kinda annoying.

 

sounds like the drive mechanism for the tape is gunked up. about the only way to fix it is to take out the unit pop the cover off and clean the drive pins underneath. while you're at it you might as well clean the head too. with the unit being as old as it is, it's fairly common

 

Time to advance to the wondeful world of CD/MP3 players.

 

I havn't worked on a tape player in an RX-7, but many units use a band-drive... It could be that the rubber in this is shot and just doesn't move the mechanisms like it should either.

But I'd start where Keltic mentioned :-)

 

grrr... oh well, guess the thing is coming BACK out of the car AGAIN... lol

 

Sounds like a stretched drive belt to this electronic technician specializing in tape recorder repair.

 

When a tape drags it's because the head is magnetized.
de-mag it. tapes are coated with metal,,,IE chrome,metal tapes.

 

 

I thought they were metal coated with plastic

 

woohoo, I figured out it works correctly when playing in one direction, and crappy in the other, so I can just eject and flip the tape over rather than use the auto reverse feature, then I dont have to mess with it

 

....Until that direction dies too

 

yep !