How to repair a broken 8 track tape

Bad things happen to tape.

[rompinronny]

Amazing demonstration of patience, and knowledge.

[THOMMGB]

Dave,
I've fixed a few 8 track tapes. I found that the glue for the track-changing foil splice dries out and falls off. What I do is listen carefully and the instant the tape changes tracks, I quickly pull and remove the cartridge so the track-sensing foil splice is visible. It's then quite easy then to replace it with a new one.

[DuckGWR]

I really love 8 track, got probably over a thousand of the suckers, spent many many hours (far, far too long for what they're worth) learning how to open and splice and repair them and the machines.

I really have a lot of love for 8 tracks, even with every one of their faults and annoyances

[waynesharp]

I've just started getting into 8 track as they were before my time and I'm finding them pretty interesting. I was amazed to see you wind all that tape back in.

[soupbonep]

As someone who has fixed dozens of 8 track tapes a in his past, I wish I had seen this video back then. I used the weather stripping like you mentioned and it is the best solution because it is already self adhesive. I used aluminum foil and glue when I first fixed some tapes, then I found the sensing foil being sold at 8 track shack. But when doing the fixes, I had yards of tape all over my carpet winding and winding! Ha! If I knew about your method It would have been a real time saver! Thanks for the great demo! Luckily I can use this on two tapes I need to put new pads on. I know some of the tape will come off when I open the darn carts up, so now I know what to do to avoid tape all over the place. 🙂

[MervinGriff]

Great Vid Dave! brought back the many memories of repacking broadcast carts for the FM station I was chief engineer for. i think we were the only ones in our area that played all of our music on carts (1600+ carts) in regular rotation but at 15 ips yes 15 ips. this was from 1978 up to 2002 when the cart machines were retired. we never played records or compact discs on air went from carts to the RCS pc based system.

[SPOONman]

one trick i came up with somewhere along the way is to use an empty reel to reel spool to help manage the tape spaghetti while untangling.

[MusicradioNetwork]

Wow! That was a mess. They did the same with VHS tapes where it got eaten up the VCR, this 8-track player got hungry that it eats tapes. I did fixed 8-track tapes that I got from eBay a month ago including a few blanks and it sounds fine, and records really good.

[Nightrelic]

8 tracks were available in stores until 1983 and from record clubs until 1988. Radio Shack sold blanks until 1990. Nobody thought these were gone in the 70's. All-in-one stereo units were available with either 8 track or cassette option into the early 80's.

[jeremytravis]

Your a braver man than me. It rather reminds me of the original Phillips Video cassettes.

[SouthernGameNerd]

My Dad had an 8-Track player in one of his cars, it was a 1972 Ford Pinto.

[rwj]

I've had a mishap here and there with playing 8 track tapes, but man I've never seen a mess like this before. 😮 I own well over one hundred of them and they all still play perfectly fine. I've already replaced all the splices and pressure pads in them for preventative maintenance. 👍🏾

[JoeTheGadgetMan]

Thanks for taking the time to do this.

[richardsmejkal]

Good Vid.. Some of the cartridges with plastic pinch rollers would crack and break apart. I worked on many 8 track recorders back in the day when I serviced electronics.

[markmarkofkane]

I used to repair those. Cassettes too.
Once I found unwound tape on the side of the road. It was all tangled. I took it home, carefully untangled it, wound it on a tape reel laying on a turntable. Got an empty cartridge, wound it back on the spool. Spliced it. And it played. I forgot what was on it, maybe 38 Special band.
I might even wound it on the spool wrong the first time. And it played backwards. I had to redo it if it was.

[digitaladdiction]

People always said that 8 Track machines eat tapes. But holy crap that machine was really Hungry!

[millerrmann]

I have many 8-track tapes but they are not my preferred medium. I just think they're nice to have around and play every once in awhile.

[b.powell]

Hi Dave! Looks like you're having a great fun time fixing the 8-track cartridge!! Lol 😆. I remember having to repair these from time to time back in the day ! Would cut a strip of foil tape to replace the bad splice from a roll of foil tape, like used for air conditioning duct work!

[randymoyer]

I Remember Learjet As they also made The 8 Track players too, Infact i still have 2 of them here and Boxes of Tapes, Some still New Tapes with Country Music on them.

[zulumax]

I still have several prerecorded 4 track carts, remember those?

Pioneer/Craig used to make a car under dash unit called a 4 + 4 that would play both 8 track and 4 track carts. Now that is old. Muntz used to make 4 track only players.