Stephen and Philippe,
Thanks but I think it is a case of being one of the converted wanting to restore my museum piece. I owned the MZ1 and wanted the non skip and reduced size of the R2. I am not a Sony collector, just a user of all Sony Hi8 and machines. I still have an EV100 Hi 8 VCR/editing deck that I had to have repaired two years ago. And an EV-S7000 full editing deck. My HandyCam is not worth repairing even though I have two underwater cases for it, one for everyday use and protection, and a spare still new in the box. I needed one or the other to complete converting our videos from around the world, and underwater, to digital and DVD .iso files. For new videos I have a Flip HD Mino touch and an HD video capability Olympus camera. Not to mention a Galaxy smartphone that does well for unplanned photo videos.
Insofar as uploading or using the deck for daily music play, no, I just want to get it working again. And since it played upside down only initially before it stopped reading discs from research it should be repairable by an aficionado. My music collection is extensive and already on CD as I made the transition early in the early 80s. I was a professional DJ when here and living in Europe for 7 years as a weekend stress relief that paid for itself and my music. I have over 30k cuts at last count and spent a month almost 8 hours every day ripping them all to the least loss mp3 sample rate of 380kbps if I remember right. I have it on three separate computers and hard drives so I don't have to do that again. But back to the topic, all the music on my MDs came from my CDs, which I still have and have catalogued with an early database program to be able to pull requests.
Anyway, like the Hi8 VCR, my daily use tech is far beyond my old PCM music on Hi8 metal tape. I went through vinyl and reel to reel with a Sony TC 630D editing deck, then Technics cassette decks and Yamaha with dbx noise reduction, allowing me to play a new album once and record it at the same time and put them listening to the cassettes. I still have the best of my old vinyl that are collector albums in climate controlled storage with virtually new covers and tracks. And I have over 3000 original CDs. I was never one to bootleg, and shock friends when I refuse to copy any of my music for them. I spent from 10-18 bucks for each CD they can buy and download online for as little as $.99 today. My collection represents about $30k-40k original investment in last century dollars. And yes, I do download some music today. I just prefer full range hard copies I own without DRM issues invoked.
So I always meant to get this repaired, just now getting a "Round Tuit." And finding out that now it may be too late. Oh well.
Thanks again for the responses guys! If any body knows who or where someone CAN repair it please let me know.