This old tape machine (Sony TC-230) is full of it. 50ish years worth of dust and grime and disintegrated foam. Cleaned it up a bit tonight and managed to get the sticky mechanics moving again. It works, but still plays a bit slower than it should. Will probably just take more time for the oil to work it’s way down into the deep recesses.
Relatedly, I think the Electra machine needs a full recap and new transistors. I’m getting terrible distortion (not the good kind) out of it unless the input and output are set almost at zero. Luckily it came with the schematic so I can order the parts I need pretty easily. It’s a real shame that electronics these days don’t come with that type of information, but companies don’t want us to be able to fix things anymore.