Good information, Tony! That was a solid deck. Few problems other than rubber. I may have replaced a few more Panasonic-built heads than some others in my time but, all-in-all a reliable and reasonably "predictable" machine.
Heard of the National brand but little used here. I don't know my Panasonic numbers and letters as we weren't warranty authorized for them. I did all my Panasonic work out of warranty and for all the other brands that used Panasonic built units (RCA, GE, Magnavox, etc.) and bought generic parts.
No SMPS down there... Interesting... Pana was one of the first to start using them here- '83 maybe '84... Hitachi and others didn't start until some time later.
Was it the 'G' deck when they went one motor and about a million & six gears? Maybe a year or two after the OP's machine? I was just getting into VCR repair at that time and I remember learning and memorizing the routine for aligning THAT loading mechanism. We called it "the stripper"
