Teac CD disc tray won’t open

Mr. Sharpe

My father gave me an older teac RE-D200 cd recorder and the playback drawer won’t open. I can open the top and push the pickup down and it will open and it will close but I have to pull it back up so it will read the disc.

What could it be? Just old?

mhardy6647

Short answer: I know nothing about that deck, so I really don't know the answer...

but...

If the tray is driven by a belt -- the belt is probably stretched, stiff, or disintegrated.
The ol' Yamaha decks, IME, are notorious for this. I fix 'em - Philistine that I am - with very small rubber bands left over from our kids' orthodontics days Not a permanent fix, but cheap (free) and easy. I can't imagine ordering one little belt from any supplier

DSC_6284_zps0d973208 by Mark Hardy, on Flickr

The old, stretched belt is still "installed" in situ on the pulleys (even if way too stretched to do its job) in the photo above; the soon-to-be installed rubber band is in the foreground I use a dental pick to worry the new "belt" into place, appropriately enough

If it's 'direct drive' (so to speak) -- my guess would be that the gears for the tray and/or the laser's sled tracks need to be cleaned/lubricated. I'll defer to others to comment on best practices for such activity.

Mr. Sharpe

Sounds good sir. I couldn’t tell ya if it’s direct or belt drive but dad told me if I can get it repaired easily he wanted it back haha i did open this unit and took the transport apart to bare bones where it was still spinning and i couldn’t tell much about it but will have to look again. Hopefully some folks with the same unit or one similar will chime in

mhardy6647

note that I used the term "direct drive" with extreme literary license
If the tray doesn't use a belt, it's probably gear drive.

Mr. Sharpe

Eh direct/gear hahaha I know what you mean