Well, we didn't do anything after posting months ago about a problem with the tape deck in my son's 1983 GL. He has the CR2170 analog radio/tape cassette player. The radio is fine; but the tape player doesn't work. We thought it was that the spindles didn't turn, but now on closer observation it appears the play heads don't engage correctly. We looked at instructions on how to remove the radio, and were unsure how to do this. Now we are unsure it is easily repairable. This yields two questions: (A) Can someone help diagnose the problem and (B) Can someone provide detailed instructions for removal/replacement of the radio?

The symptoms: When at tape is inserted into the player, the motor driving the spindles is faintly heard. It accelerates on the FF and REW buttons. Pressing FF or REW causes the tape to advance. If the FF button or REW button is mostly depressed, the familiar tape-played-on-FF sound is heard. But when released, there is NO audio. When pressing the REV button to reverse tape direction, there is some audio associated with it, like a soft buzz, but the tape doesn't, in fact, reverse. What is wrong, and how to fix it?

Now, assuming we can repair it, or decide to replace it, how do we remove it? Loosening the small screw in the top left of the face doesn't release it; we've removed the plastic panels beside the foot space for passenger and driver and find a small brass-like screw on either side that seems to hold the radio in a track, but removing those screws didn't release the radio. Immediately behind the radio is lots of stuff including some white plastic bottle like thing, so we don't find a way to get in from behind.

Thanks for your help.

--
83 240 GL