To get the all original style for my Aw11, I bought an original radio for it. The seller couldn’t tell me if it was in working condition.
It was cheap enough for me to take the risk and buy it anyway.
As I wanted to install it in the MR2, I found that the wiring in the car weirdly didn’t match the radio. But it didn’t seem that the wiring had been modified, which was kind of odd.
Anyway, to test the radio without hacking up the loom, I wired it on my coffee table and played around with it.
It turned on, the radio works, tried putting in a tape, and the motorized deck loaded the tape as it should, but the it didn’t play. It wouldn’t come out anymore, either. So I opened up the radio, took the tape out manually, and tried again, this time it worked as intended, turning to tape mode, loading the tape, playing, and even the side switch button worked. Unloading worked. When I tried again, the tape would load and then, nothing. I took the tape out manually again, but now it doesn’t load anymore. What seems to be the forward/reverse driver heated up and started smelling.
My guess is that at least the driver is toast. Question is: is this repairable ? Would I be able to do that, and would any shop do that for a reasonable price ?
The part itself (lb1640) is cheap, but I wonder if that would resolve my issue