JVC HR-S9600 cassette loading problems

[Mr Chris]

My JVC HR-S9600 has slowly started rejecting tapes, and now it's at the point where it only loads correctly roughly once in every five attempts. And even then it doesn't always return them properly, either. I've taken the top off and uploaded this clip to YouTube of some successful and unsuccessful loads and unloads (or you can download the attached):

https://youtu.be/Zb4IGq0RIGk

As you can see, it's evidently the top guide bar that's the problem, either refusing to find its way under the cassette flap or working itself free altogether. Just generally not staying in position and doing its job, really. My worry is that I don't know of any VHS repair places anywhere near me, I can't get anywhere at the moment anyway, and my own expertise doesn't extend much further than head cleaning.

Has anyone else experienced this? Is it a known issue, or unique to my unit? Most importantly, can anyone suggest the best course of action for a DIY fix?

[dellsam34]

The whole metal bar's end is snapped off, This is not something that can be fixed with glue, You need some parts from a donor deck unfortunately, If you keep using it like that you will be damaging it further.
The easiest way is to replace the whole cassette basket, It is usually held with 4 screws and can only be replaced when the VCR is in full eject mode, you would need to remove the front face plate, It's a 2 minute job if you have a donor part.

[Mr Chris]

Hmmm... I was afraid of that. Do you happen to know if a new cassette basket would have to come from the exact same model, or whether there's a generic one I could go for? (I really am completely out of my depth here.)

That said, I honestly can't see what's snapped, if anything. The bar itself doesn't seem to be broken and can be re-attached so that it very nearly holds - enough to be able to occasionally load perfectly, anyway - and the plastic bit it's supposed to hook onto appears to be intact. It's more like it's been worn down rather than anything sudden, but I could be wrong. If glue won't work, could the bar be secured in place with a strong thread (or something similar), or is that an insane idea?

The service manual isn't a great deal of help, incidentally.

[dellsam34]

If you can't take it a part and figure out what's wrong with it the only easy way is to replace the whole thing, First get the part # out of the service manual and start looking for similar parts, Usually manufacturers use one part for several models before they completely change the design.

[johns0]

Compare the other side of the basket with the faulty one to see if there's any missing parts or that are broken or worn.

[oln]

Most of the mechanism (other than the dynamic drum stuff) was shared between the JVC models in the same lineup, and they used this mech for a while after this came out, so it should be possible to salvage something from a lower-end model from around the same time (not older tho as those had a different mech.)

[Mr Chris]

Most of the mechanism (other than the dynamic drum stuff) was shared between the JVC models in the same lineup, and they used this mech for a while after this came out, so it should be possible to salvage something from a lower-end model from around the same time

Well that's a bit of a relief, at least. I'm not giving up hope on a fix just yet, though...

Compare the other side of the basket with the faulty one to see if there's any missing parts or that are broken or worn.

It's not actually symmetrical, so it's difficult to be certain, but for the life of me I can't see anything that's broken. On the contrary, when everything's in place it looks like there should be no problem at all, and trying to lift that right side of the bar clean off by hand (like it does in the vid I posted) doesn't work if you lift straight upwards. Agonisingly, though, there's a tiny bit of 'give' - maybe a millimetre or two - and if you lift up and forward, that tiny amount makes all the difference. Only on the righthand side, that is. We really are talking about millimetres, which is presumably why it still works perfectly some of the time.

Of course, the top guide bar is made to be detachable, as that's how you're supposed to remove a cassette if it somehow gets trapped. Unfortunately, while the service manual gives details on that process, I can't find any mention of how to re-attach it afterwards, so it's possible I'm missing something obvious. I think I need to find a way to prevent it from edging forwards when in place - any ideas?