Cassette adapters not working

Regular cassettes play fine, but two different adapters get ejected after a few seconds with E13 error.  One older adapter that worked fine in my Expedition a couple years ago, and one new one.  WTF?

I did a quick web search on this, had this problem a while back that I  solved by replacing my unity with a good JY pull.  

Technically E13 is the radio thinks the tape is moving too fast or too slow.  

If you can find one, get a cleaning/demagnetizing cassette, follow the instructions to clean the unit, and try again.

If that does not work, the mechanical issues that can cause this are a broken gear in the cassette deck and a too-worn belt in the cassette drive mechanism.  With patience you can replace the belt, if you can find such a replacement belt (hint - google it, they are like 100 assorted for $4.-) .  You can disassemble the radio and swap in a known good deck from another Delco radio of that era, if the nylon gears breaking is the problem. My solution was to replace the unit with a JY pull, worked fine for a while but now the CD player in that unit is finicky -- it **sounds** better than the old one but is *much* less tolerant of scratched CDs.

another solution would be to use a low power FM transmitter such as one or another of these:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=car+fm+transmitters&rh=n%3A465608&ref=nb_sb_noss

Generally they work OK as long as you have a clear channel (ha ha) - try the ends of the FM band.  The band is 87.9 to 107.9 MHz.  There is a channel every 200 MHz, at 88.1, 88.3, 88.5, et cetera. Depending on the market the chip in your radio was actually made for it may turn a bit beyond those numbers.  As a practical matter you can use any frequency that you can tune both the transmitter and radio to, since the transmitter actually is very low power, and does not transmit car beyond the (faraday cage) cabin of the vehicle.

I can try cleaning it, but the whole point of using a cassette adapter was I don't want to deal with removing the dash. Otherwise, I'd put in a modern mechless head with bluetooth and usb. Just surprises me it has no problem playing regular cassettes.

snerkman wrote:

I can try cleaning it, but the whole point of using a cassette adapter was I don't want to deal with removing the dash.  Otherwise, I'd put in a modern mechless head with bluetooth and usb.  Just surprises me it has no problem playing regular cassettes.

There is a *remote* chance that both your adapters are wack, or they are both OK but not appropriate for this cassette deck. Here are details:

A typical cassette adapter uses a single-sided writing tape head connected to a corded stereo 3.5mm connector.  Plug the cord into some device's output (typically headphone) port and the electrical audio signal is converted into a magnetic signal by the head.  In order for the cassette player to recognize it, it has an internal mechanism that simulates the behavior or an actual tape.  The youtube video I link to HERE has a teardown that shows the guts.  Point is, if for whatever reason the audio connection fails mechanical bits malfunction, a typical car cassette player will spit out the converter.  Different cassette players will react somewhat differently, and different adapters apparently have different mechanical strategies -- meaning that an adapter that works in one cassette player may well not work at all in a different one.

So to put a pin in this story, I did some research and saw a lot of folks swore by the Sony CPA-7 adapter. I found a used one on feeBay for under 10 bucks shipped. It's working! Funny thing is, only after I got this one did I realize my really old one is the same thing! Must have got it with a Sony Discman I bought in the late 80s. That's the one that was working in my Expedition a couple years ago. In any event, it seems like it was just a crapshoot to find one this head unit was happy with.

snerkman wrote:

So to put a pin in this story, I did some research and saw a lot of folks swore by the Sony CPA-7 adapter.  I found a used one on feeBay for under 10 bucks shipped.  It's working!  Funny thing is, only after I got this one did I realize my really old one is the same thing!  Must have got it with a Sony Discman I bought in the late 80s.  That's the one that was working in my Expedition a couple years ago.  In any event, it seems like it was just a crapshoot to find one this head unit was happy with.

...so much for that!