Negatives of the two speakers both connect to negative of battery or power supply. You'll also need a 12 volt power source (car battery or 12v DC mains adaptor). Look for 8-track tapes from RCA - they are better quality and have a copper spring with felt pressure pads instead of fragile foam.Īs for wiring up your player, if your car's speakers are inaccessible you can test it with another pair of speakers, e.g. Draught excluder is a good replacement for the foam.

Another problem is that the tape is pressed against the playback head usually by a foam pad in the cartridge. You may have to fix this if (or preferably before) your tape breaks. The problem with old 8-track tapes is that the splice can lose its stickiness over time and can come off, breaking the loop.

When the tape has played to the end, it starts again from the beginning. The two ends of tape are joined with a foil splice, forming an endless loop. The graphite coating allows the tape to move through the spool. As you've probably never seen one, the tape in an 8-track cartridge is on a single spool which unwinds from the middle and winds itself back on the outside. The tape is coated with graphite on the back. The 8 track tape cartridges need no lubrication either. Luckily that hasn't happened.ĭO NOT oil a rubber belt. Sometimes, on 8 track players of this vintage, the rubber belt decomposes and either turns into horrible sticky tar, or becomes brittle and cracks. From your description, the belt sounds all right.

8 track tape deck