ELMO ST 1200 D stalls halfway through rewinding film

[Roger Faires]

Hello All - Been a long time since I wrote anything here. Here goes: I purchased an Elmo ST 1200 D oh, about 10 years ago. Bad melted belts of course. Since I already had a really cherry ST 1200 HD I just kinda sidelined the "D". So, today I brought it out, finished the black goo clean up and installed the 3 basic main belts and tested. All fine. No crazy sounds and none of the new (clunky though they are) belts slipping off any pulley wheels, so I test screen one of my old super 8 films - 10 min long give or take. All fine there but come time to rewind about exactly halfway through rewind, the rewinding process just stalls. Motor seems fine. So I helped it out manually a bit since the front arm was rotating ok. Opened the back, nothing wrong I could see. Repeated the process and once again the stall. What could this be? Sorry for long winded build up!

[Janice Glesser]

I had the same problem. you may not have to replace the clutch gear but you can make the adjustment.

https://8mmforum.film-tech.com/vbb/f...8000#post79414

[Roger Faires]

Morning Janice, I will give this a look over after my coffee kicks in and let you know. Thank you!!

[Janice Glesser]

Hi Roger... Everything looks better after your morning cup of coffee.

[Roger Faires]

Yes, indeed Janice. And now another morning and lots more coffee. Today is actually the day I can devote to delving back into the 1200 D situation - got caught up in other things yesterday, so I'll surely let you know.Question first: Are there any belts in the fold out Reel Arms? I'm not sure what the gearing in those looks like and was wondering if something there might cause this too?

[Janice Glesser]

Roger... A loose belt can always be an issue, however since it is rewinding up to a certain point normally, it's most likely an adjustment that's needed. The photo I posted shows where you can adjust the clutch gear. Do you have a manual?

[Roger Faires]

Hey Janice, I only have the original owner's manual not a service manual.

[Roger Faires]

Hi Again Janice, OK, I did download a service manual although to me, for the time being, it's a little confusing. I wished there was one or two devoted pages to just naming all the parts. Anyway, trying to figure this take up gear clutch thing out. The picture below indicated the the gear(s) on my 1200D currently and they look just fine but I am curious if the two (both right side in photo) are considered one take up clutch sprocketed gear. Also, what is the thin metal blade for that rest against the right edge of that front wheel? And, if you can tell from photo, when I replaced the long belt a few days ago I did not remove the entire spindle on the Left gear, just the C-Clip, and spring so I could ease that gear out a bit and then manuever the belt by the other gear. I used the appropriate size allen wrench for the grub screw - does the spring look correct now? As always, any advice and thoughts from you are marvelous!

[Janice Glesser]

Roger your clutch gear which is the gear on the right looks fine... I don't see any cracks so that doesn't need to be replaced. If you have already made an adjustment to the gear to the left which adjusts the spring tension to the take-up reel then you will have to now test to see if the real does a complete rewind. Unless you have a way to measure the tension on the take up real this process is more trial and error. You loosen or tighten the spring until The rewind tension improves. I would imagine with the age of these projectors that tightness or looseness of the spring may be different for different projectors.

[Roger Faires]

Hi Jaince, Thank you as always for the reply!. Since I did take off the c-clip and spring portion of the left gear, like I wrote, to move that Gear a little forward (since by the way I too couldn't unscrew the spindle out - too afraid to snap it - so resistant) to install the new belt perhaps I compressed the spring too much when I reinstalled? I think I will try to give it just a smidge of breathing room. I'll let you know! Heck, this was my, in the closet one day back up projector and once I cleaned to old black goo from old belts out, it looks a lot healthier than my nice 1200 HD. That was just an aside.