240D becker repair Question
 

Hey ya'll, this is a long shot, but I'll try this question here:

The factory becker (Europa?) tape player/radio in my '82 240D wont keep tapes in. I'll shove one in and it'll play for about 3 seconds and then it'll pop back out.
I took the radio out and took a look. As it turns out, there are two wires that tension up against the side of each 'spindle' (the 2 spindles that drive the tape reels. One of my tensioning wires was twisted and not making contact- so it makes sense- the radio wasnt getting the right signal from this wire (it kinda springs up against the spindle below where the drives the tape) so they player thought that the tape wasnt spinning (was at the end or stuck or whatever).

well, when playing with it, I accidently broke off the messed-up tension wire, then lost it on the floor of the laundrymat...long story, sad times, but lets move beyond this please =)

To get to the point- can I just solder the broken 'tension wire' to the other one and make the tape player think that is is always spinning (each spindle has its own set of tension wires...), or is there some kinda sensing mechanism that it beyond my capacity here ?

Long shot, but maybe someone has seen this kinda electronics before. And no, I dont want to replace it with a stereo from a store somewhere- if anything I'd splurge for a cd/mp3 player..which is much more expensive than just soldering the thing (if possible, If I try it, I'll tell ya'll if it works.)

-John

What is it??
 

Hi Angel,
What you have is Sensor Tension Arms that make contact with the Takeup Reel to send pulses to the chip inside to let it know the reels are moving. If they don't see movement they will kick the cassette out thinking it is at the end or jammed. It is fixable even on an older unit like yours. Your unit should be a Becker BE-612. If I am correct then I have parts for it available. If it is a different model then let me know which one you have. We have over 4 million parts in inventory. Give me a call for more info.

Cleeve Morrison
La Jolla Audio Repair

www.mercedesradiorepair.net

Cleeve, I veyr much appreciate the reply. I went to ya'll's site and might be giving you a call/email soon.

I was hoever able to fix the thing- I soldered a wire (from a CAT 5 cable) in place of the one that broke off and the tape player works fine now...so far. I realize that this is a bootleg repair, but, when time permits, I will do better, now that there is a source of parts out there.

-John