Project: Restoring a Teac A-480 Stereo Cassette Deck - General Cleaning.

As promised in the previous post, I will present today what I did for cleaning the deck. I used for this operation a regular dust brush; few cue tips and orange cleaner.

To open the deck you have to unscrew the four mounting screws:

Now the deck looks like this:

The metal cover can be removed by hand, there are no more screws holding it, by pushing it backwards and then lifting it up:

Now you have access inside to clean the dust or rubber remains from the belts:

Next parts which needs cleaning from time to time are the buttons and knobs:

Also, the front panel and the tape cover can be cleaned for a look like “new” condition. Here it is important to use a cleaner that is not aggressive, you can easily remove the writings from the plate and the effect will be very disappointing. I asked around for a soft cleaner and I was pointed to use a natural cleaner based on extracts from orange fruit.

To remove the panel you have to remove first the cassette cover by ejecting the cassette tray and pulling the cover up and out:

Then you have to unscrew several screws to remove the front panel, as you can see below:

In the final stage you can also clean all the other parts left: VU Meters, Function and Direction buttons, tape counter, deep cleaning of pinch roller and heads:

Basically this should be all.

To assemble the unit back, you have to follow the above steps in reverse.