VCR's have tires? you say!
It is fun when you learn somthing new and can save yourself money at the same time. Recently our almost 16 year old Sanyo VCR (was state of the art the year we got married and cost a bundle, I think we were elated that we could get it for around $400) got hungry and ate a rental tape that we had rented for our son to watch on New Years eve while my wife and I watched grown up DVDs in the family room. I tore it apart and fiddled with it for a few min and noticed that the VCR Idler assembly tire was dry rotted and had cracked in several places. As I was tugging and playing with it it basicly fell off the assembly into my hands. Anyhow to make a long story short after not being able to find the part online I went down to a great place in South Salt Lake CIty called Ray-Elco that stocks just about any electronic part you should ever want. The tire cost me $2.10 before tax and when I got home this evening it took me about 5 min. to fix our VCR. As I was surfing the net I found out that a broken, worn, streched or dirty VCR tire is the #1 reason for VCR repair and generally people throw it out at that point because it cost more to fix then to buy one. Well I just saved myself ~$150-$200 because I was going to buy a combo VCR/DVD player if I could not fix the old one. Our main TV only has two inputs and my sons prized PlayStation 2 is connected to one of them so we would need a combo unit to preserve both formats since I have been thinking of getting a real DVD player for our TV (we use the PS2 for this purpose now).

So if your VCR is in need of repair let me know and I may be able to fix it.
11:27:38 PM     comment []