[Adam]

The head was stuck when I got this, but I freed it just rotating it by hand. I replaced the one belt this uses, and then it played tapes. But the picture was 'smeared' out and with dark and light vertical bars -- but I then tried it with the composite output and it looked fine --

Figuring the trouble was in the modulator - I removed the modulator from the main board it was soldered to-- took it apart and saw 3 electrolytic capacitors, one of which was visibly bulged out and thought just to replace the 3 capacitors and put it back together and see what happens -- but I broke some surface mount component on the modulator board trying to solder on one of the new capacitors

Now does anyone know where I can get a schematic of the modulator to see what it is I broke, or what other VCRs I could interchange the whole modulator unit from? Thanks.

(I just fixed and sold an RCA VPT630HF - now I wish I had kept it - I bet I could have just swapped the whole modulator into this one)