How about a Do-It-Good-Enough-Yourselfer? I couldn't get both the Play and Play/Record sides working on this cassette recorder. The reason? Out of those 50 random rubber belts, there were no duplicates in the mid-range necessary. I put the 2 that fit on the play side and next best on the record side. Next best is not good enough. There is no incentive to fix the P/R side. Heck, I may never even put the cover back on. This is an inherited character flaw. Btw, if I do put it back on, I'll still have 2 screws left over.
Only two screws, no parts? Good job then. Have you tried cleaning the rubber belts and rubber drives with brake fluid? That is what the old rubber drive cleaner was that was bottled up and labeled and sold for 20 times what it cost as brake fluid. Put some on a rag and gently clean the belts without stretching. The brake fluid just removes that hard slick surface so the rubber can grip again. Idle wheels and capstan rollers are famous for slipping due to being slick. I use a long cotton-tipped swab doused in brake fluid and wa la, problem solved. You have more patience than I these days. I have sent all that old electronic stuff to charity.
July 10, 2022 - Sunday I spent all morning trying to get Audacity, the tape conversion software, working. All you could hear was a loud buzz. When you plug headphones into a headphone jack the sound cuts out of the speakers. I just assumed that meant the speakers were putting out the same signals as what goes to headphones. Apparently not. It should have been a red flag when I couldn't find anyone with a Youtube video showing how to do what I was trying to do. Got a 1/4" x 3.5 mm cable at Guitar City this afternoon. Problem solved. Spent 3.5 hours this evening copying tapes to mp3 files. I bought my father a portable tape recorder for his birthday long ago. One of the few gifts he really liked. These were tapes my parents made together, all in the early 1980s, just after my dad retired. Snowbirds, they still had both houses in Akron and Florida. We exchanged tapes in the mail for a while in lieu of phone calls. I found the two tapes I wanted. One was 16 people—relatives and neighbors—wishing me a happy 34th birthday. The other was a long discussion of their plans for how to remodel that old corn crib into the cabin. Also found 2 more tapes that were just as interesting. In conversations with relatives when I was living at home, I almost always just listened and everyone else did the talking. So just listening to them talk seemed normal. Like listening to normal people talking about normal things. What was odd? Listening to your parents talk to you when they are 15 years younger than you are. Foolish kids. So upbeat. I could probably retape these now and do a better job. My mother and father have different levels of volume and range. It was hard to get both equally clear. On the one hand, I think it was better to use this tape deck, because of the equalizers. I learned something half-fixing it. OTOH, maybe a cheap tape player mutes the bass and treble automatically because of the cheapness. I'll never know.
I'm vindicated, sort of. This is the picture of the underside of this string trimmer/mower from the official user's manual. Actual size. So this is how I threaded the new belt the first time (when it didn't work right): Look carefully, the two metal pieces under the right pully are reversed. Below is the vertically flipped image of the one in the user manual. This is the way mine should have been pictured. The manual must have been printed in Australia.
So how did you figure that out? That's a horrible mistake! It reminds me of a "How To Improve Your Bowling" book I bought, written by Earl Anthony. He was a southpaw, so all the pics were flipped for we right-handed people.
My reading ability is terrible. But I'm pretty good with picture books. It just kept bugging me that I messed it up so badly. Of course if I understood what I was doing, I wouldn't need a picture.
(7/12/22) Tuesday The 3rd Bluebird Nest Change in activity started Saturday. It could be because Papa Bluebird finally cut the two teenagers from nest #2 loose. When they approach with mouths open he attacks them now. They look bewildered. It's kind of sad. He has time to pay attention to nest #3 again. He kept peeking in the birdhouse all day Saturday. Beats me why. Today is the first time it's clear some eggs have hatched. Female taking food into the nest is a sure sign. It could have started as early as Sunday. You have to be able to watch for at least 20 minutes without taking your eyes off the nest to be sure. I'm too easily distracted. In 17-20 days they fledge. That puts it approximately July 27 - August 1. Speaking of the teenagers, I was going by the feather colors to say one from nest #2 is female (L) and one is male (R). But as they have gotten older their feathers look more alike. Glad they are hanging around a while at least. Maybe I can tell for sure before they leave for good. Don't know why this matters. Hoping at least one is a female I guess.
Today the only goal was to set up the body shop/insurance/rental car stuff for July 28th. It went smoother than expected. There must be something in the air. The insurance raised the auto rental coverage to $40/day. The car rental place said they have cars under that. They will pick you up at the body shop. The insurance co is going to pay the body shop directly. She didn't even mention that as an option because most everybody wants to get a check in the mail. (Why?) I just have to remember to show up. The biggest hitch might be getting car parts, because of supply chain delays. The woman at the ins co told me a horror story about a woman who owns a Kia and her car is stuck at the body shop since April waiting on a front grill. I like hearing all these horror stories now, because if you prepare yourself for them, they never seem to happen. We'll see ... Time to start another round of mowing. I even got the front lawn done before our daily rain came.
I had a classic 1959 Austin Healey that got rear-ended. I took it oo a classic body shop, got a quite, got the check and cashed it. The check was more than I paid for the car. I got in the trunk and beat it our "good enough." Some people will just live with the damage. I had someone rear end my truck and damage the bumper. I cashed the check and installed the new one myself. Regarding cars getting stuck at body shops...I wonder why there is no way to make arrangements where they order the part and you hang on to the vehicle, assuming it's driveable. There's gotta be a way for the shop to cover their risk of buying the parts and not getting stuck with them. If nothing else, they got insurance risk to have cars parked there for so long. Anyway, I'm glad things are progressing. And I hope you're not waiting too long to get your truck back. Git yourself a nice rental. Learn how to use the lights and the wipers before you need them (I always hated that when traveling with work. You'd think they would give you a piece of paper explaining the essentials.)
That makes sense why you'd want a check. If this wasn't a new truck, I'd just let it go like it is. The damage is not that bad. Sometimes I think I still should do that anyway. It depends on how long I'm going to keep it, I guess. If the other guy wasn't involved I might not even have reported it.
It's brand new...you gotta get it fixed. I had a similar (self-inflicted) ding on my 1989 S-10 pickup my first few weeks of ownership, and I got it fixed.