Did Nixon Erase My Tape?


During my Army days in the early 70s, I bought stereo pieces while I was overseas and had them sent home to wait for me when I got out. One of the pieces was a Teac RTR, and over the next 12-15 years, I made around 50 7" tape mixes, all of them at 7 1/2 IPS. I still have those tapes and have acquired three nice RTRs.....a Teac A-4300SX, a Teac X-1000R, and an Akai GX-636. I was playing a tape today on the X-1000 and when I hit 'reverse' to play the second side, all I got was silence, with an occasional garbled sound every 5 seconds or so. At first, I thought maybe I had erased the second side and never re-recorded back over it, but the back of the box (where you would write in whatever you recorded) showed no changes.So I removed the tape from the right take-up reel, flipped it over so that the B side was now the A side and re-threaded the tape back on the left reel. The recording played beautifully, with no problems, and I'm trying to figure out where the problem lies. The tape was originally recorded on a Teac A-4010SL and I think this is the first time I've played it in at least 20 years. I'm thinking that tracks 2 and 4 just don't line up correctly with the reverse-playback heads on the X-1000, which itself seems goofy to me. Any veteran tape-heads out there that have an opinion, please let me know. The X-1000R has bi-directional recording capability, which the A-4010SL did not.
discnik
"Iā€™m not a crook"! His VP resigned too. VP Agnew. Then VP Ford, who became president and pardoned, Richard Nixon.

The whole US scratched their heads while our jails were packed with guys doing 20 years in OK for 2 joints.. YUP.. 20 years..

Roll another one, just like the other one.... Sure has changed, now where that pardon for everyone else?

Regards
@discnik, most likely cause are one of two things.

1. the tape is not tracking correctly in reverse direction.
2. There is a large switch assembly in the bottom of the deck mounted to the large PCB. If these contacts get dirty over time, when you reverse play the deck the contacts will not make a good connection, giving you no signal or a garbled signal.
Try cleaning these contacts in the reversing switch and see if it helps.
Thanks for the responses, guys....historical and actual operational input is appreciated. I had to go back in time and think about the repair history on my A-4010SL deck.....for reasons more neurotic than fact-based, I had the heads replaced in the late 1970s and it's possible that the tech I used did not correctly align the new heads at the time. The tape that failed to play properly was recorded in 1985 after the head replacement had been done. Thanks for the tip, johnss.....I plan to play the offending tape on my GX-636 to see if it tracks correctly on that deck. If it does, I will have your tip looked into. The reference to Peter Graves being responsible went right over my head, and he was one of my favorite actors from childhood (My Friend Flicka), tom6897.
I thought Peter Graves was in Fury. Ā ā€œThe story of a horse and the boy who loved himā€. Peter Graves played the father on the show.Ā