Occasionally squealing video head on HR-S9800U?
 

Hello all, I'm working on refurbishing an HR-S9800U. The unit works for playback, but I can hear a subtle high pitched squeal occasionally when the head drum is spinning. I figure this really can only be coming from the ball bearings within the head drum. Audio sample of what I'm hearing is attached.

Attachment 18281

As far as I can tell, the picture does not get worse during the squealing, but I'd have to guess that the squealing does introduce some very fine vibrations that would ideally not be there. That, and it's annoying.

Could also be that this VCR has sat for a decade unused and the squealing might go away if it is run for a few hours.

I don't think the bearings are in bad shape and that the squeal would probably go away with lubrication alone mainly because the time it takes to spin down is not particularly short to suggest that the bearings are introducing extra resistance over a different head drum of the same model in another VCR that doesn't have this squealing.

Has anyone had good results with disassembling a video head drums to re-lubricate or replace the bearings inside, or do most people just tolerate squealing in favor of not risking causing an alignment issue when putting the video head back together? If so, is there a particular lubricant that is ideal for this application?

Don't know what it is about posting things that makes you find the answer yourself more quickly, but I suspect what is going on here is similar to this thread:

https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vcr-repair/10037-vcr-video-drum.html

Essentially there's a little carbon brush underneath the stator that drags along a brass track connected to the lower drum whenever the drum spins, so that could make noise as well. The little carbon brush is actually symmetrical, so it's possible to just flip the brush and you have a brand new surface of the brush to use. I cleaned the inside of the track with an alcohol soaked Qtip stalk while rotating the lower part of the drum in relation and I'll be reassembling shortly to see if that took care of the squeal, but I suspect that it will.

Yep, cleaning and flipping that brush seems to have fixed it.