Not being being one to be easily defeated--and not leave well enough alone--I forged ahead with my plans to repair a malfunctioning Sony DCR-TRV140. Parts were somewhat difficult to procure, and it was eventually realized that buying another broken camcorder would've been a cheaper and easier endeavor. Such was exactly the end result, with my settling on a camcorder plagued with a myriad of inexplicable issues; remarkably, the condition of the tape mechanism betrayed the otherwise dismal condition.
Tracking down a service manual did take a reasonable degree of effort, what with all the illegitimate websites that seemingly show up whenever the word "download" is appended to a query submitted to any of the search engines available.
With service manual, tools, and both camcorders in hand, I commenced in my Sony Handycam rehabilitation.
Notwithstanding the several snags I encountered, all turned out well with the camcorder being fully resurrected and brought back to the land of the living. Of course, I now have the second donor camcorder from which several of its parts were sacrificed to repair the other, quietly awaiting its restoration. This is a dangerously circuitous scenario I've found myself in, since I can't live with the thought of discarding a camcorder that would be (and eventually will be) in functional condition after some intervention and the installation of working parts.
