My new-to-me '95 sc400 was sold to me with a cassette tape loaded as a gift, for my 900 mile trek home. I never did play it, and when I later tried to eject it, it just sat in there ignoring the command. I've managed to lift the tape up with a tool, but can't seem to grab it to pull it out manually without damaging the player's guts. Anyone try this?

 

60 viewers and nobody has ever had a reluctant cassette tape stuck? LOL, old skool tech haha!

 

I think most people have given up on the cassette tape long ago. Common problem is broken belts, fancy dismantling the player?

 

Lex2K- LOL, no I don't fancy that... Just curious about getting it out easily, but no biggie eh?

 

Dunno how that particular transport works generally there is a belt or set of gears that move the platen that houses the cassette. Or sometimes a rubber wheel contacting another wheel, which is the worst possible design.

 

I did an aux tape with cable that jammed.. it wouldn't eject so I ended up yanking on the aux cable while pushing the eject button.. took 2 times 1 to pull it all the way up and a 2nd to pull it all the way out...
you may need a slim piece of plastic or metal wrapped in tape to force the cassette up... then 2 more flat heads wrapped in tape to pull it out.. my .02cents

 

I've had this happen in players and I ended up not being nice to them. Screwdriver, needle nose pliers and a paint scraper. Enough prying and it'll come out whole or in pieces. I can ID with your frustration. With all the stereo units in these cars that have been replaced with modern units, I'm sure there are some available as a replacement if yours breaks. Good luck.

 

I had the same thing happen to my stock head unit. It's now sitting in a box in my closet with the same cassette tape stuck in it. If I were to start troubleshooting this issue I'd probably go to the tapeheads.net forum or homerecording.com forum and do a lot of searching and research first as well as start binging on auto tape deck repair videos. It's getting to be a very niche art to repair various decks. I think dismantling it partially may be the only way to remove that cassette but I'd be very careful and organized about this.

LeX2K I'm inclined to agree with your theory. It may be a series of plastic gears in there that make the carrier mechanism eject and retract. I've never opened one of these up to see for myself. When my factory HU deck jammed with a cassette in there I was able to use very fine electronics screwdriver tools to pull the spring loaded carrier up but I had no way to grab deep enough into it to pull the cassette out while doing it.

Maybe I'll try again with another method since this thread has gotten me thinking about it now.

Just last month I bought a new Tascam pro cassette deck strictly to digitize a massive library of old master tapes onto a big hard drive... but I can't say I've had have any motivation to repair my SC300's old original Pioneer tape deck head unit.

 

Had this happen on my '00 Jetta a few times. In each case, I took a pair of long tweezers and a flathead screwdriver to pry the cassette out.