Famicom Disk System - belt replacement & head tuning
Tools required:
- Replacement belt
- Medium sized Phillips head screwdriver
- Small precision Phillips head screwdriver
- Small precision flat head screwdriver
- 1.5mm Allan key
- Tweezers
- Pliers
- Cotton tips
- Isopropyl alcohol (or another cleaning solution good at removing melted rubber)
SECTION 1: Drive Removal
1. Flip the unit upside down and remove the following 6 screws:
2. Turn the unit over, right side up, and gently lift off the top half of the case. There are no wires attached to this bit so it's safe to remove completely.
3. With the unit now open, proceed to remove screws 1 & 2 from the battery tray compartment. Now gently lift the battery tray upwards and rotate it back and to the right as shown in the picture below, being careful not to disconnect the 2 wires.
4. Remove screws A, B, C, D but DO NOT yet attempt to remove the disk drive.
The 4 drive mounting screws (A,B,C,D) each have a washer and a metal shim, do not lose these parts:
5. Gently slide the front faceplate out (being careful not to disconnect the drive access LED wires) and set to the side:
6. Remove the data plug as illustrated by the white oval in the picture above. Gently wiggle it from side to side until it pulls free. If it's stubborn to remove, carefully use pliers to obtain a better grip. You may find it helpful to lift and tilt the drive upwards a fraction.
7. The drive is now free and able to be removed.
Easy part is over ;)
SECTION 2: Fitting of the New Belt
1. Remove the following 2 screws and pull off the front surround from the disk drive unit:
2. Using pliers and/or a flat head screwdriver, bend the following metal clamps upwards in order to free the wires from them:
3. Flip the disk drive over and remove the following 3 screws, ignoring the bottom left one for now:
4. Remove the bottom metal plate:
5. Remove the following 4 screws. NOTE: The top right (red circle) & bottom left (yellow circle) screws are unique and MUST be returned to their original holes upon reassembly.
6. GENTLY & CAREFULLY lift the PCB upwards as shown in the picture below - being careful to not pull out any of the wires that are running out to the rear (the same ones we freed from their metal clamps earlier). We are not attempting to remove the PCB here, we are merely lifting it out of our way in order to gain access to the belt.
Also remove the following 3 screws from the triangular metal clamp:
^ Please ignore the red rubber band.
7. Lift the metal clamp upwards whilst rotating it clockwise, and slide it up and out. Be careful not to lose the small black washer as illustrated by the yellow arrow:
8. Now we can clearly see where the belt goes. Yours will most likely be snapped or stretched and will have turned to tar, leaving a black sticky residue on both of the pulleys. You will need to scrape off the bulk of it with a flat head screwdriver and follow by rubbing both pulleys with some isopropyl soaked cotton tips. Finish up with some dry cotton tips to ensure all isopropyl has been removed. This will be a lengthy process.
9. To fit the new belt, first position it like so within the metal clamp:
10. Now loop the belt over the large white bottom pulley, and whilst keeping the belt in place, slide and twist the metal clamp back into position - it will 'click' when correctly inserted. Once the metal clamp has been inserted, pull the belt up over the top small pulley.
11. With the new belt fitted, turn the pulleys to ensure correct operation and reassemble. It's important not to over tighten any of the screws, especially the ones securing the PCB and metal clamp.
