A problem just surfaced with my CLD-97 Pioneer laserdisc player: Intermittently, when I place a disc on
the platter and press PLAY, it starts to read the disc, then it stops and ejects the disc... even though the
discs are perfectly fine. This failure happens irregularly, with different laserdiscs...then it later may proceed to play the same disc uneventfully. Hoping people have run into this problem? Maybe lens needs cleaning? When the failure doesn't occur the player plays discs normally.
I don't use the player very often these days, so I suspect dirt... Many thanks!

Does it take a while for discs to spin down when you hit stop? Sounds like the symptoms of a dirty spindle motor clamp surface. Clean the rubber pad on the spindle motor. If you search the forums there is some good advice on how to do it.

I second that advice, one of the easiest do it yourself repairs, here is cut and paste from the expert -

1. Press Eject so the tray is out then unplug the unit.
2. Open the unit, in the middle above the spindle motor there is a bracket
the
holds the top have of the clamp.
3. Remove the 4 screws, two on each side that hold the bracket and remove
the
bracket and top clamp piece.
4. You can now easily see the clamping surface on the spindle motor. The
outer thin rubber ring is what grips the LD.
5. Firmly hold the spindle motor so it won't turn and take Radio Shack
Professional head cleaning solution and a cleaning stick, chamois sticks
preferred as they can scrub good
6. Scrub a section of the rubber surface then rotate the motor and scrub
another, Do this until thoroughly cleaned, you are basically resurfacing the
rubber surface so scrub HARD. Note: If the surface is bad/dryrotted it will
flake off during this. Don't worry as this means it was not good and needed
replaced anyway. This has only happened once in the countless players I've
cleaned.
7. Put it back together and test, if it still slips do it again.

Thank you very much for the advice!

Just to clarify in case the advice changes upon further detail:
One of you asks: "Does it take a while for the disc to spin down when you hit stop?"
No it doesn't. Normally the disc spins up, and after several seconds the readout changes
to PLAY and the discs starts. Upon a failure, the LED remains unchanged for several seconds,
it never reaches PLAY, but it changes to STOP and the disc is immediately ejected- no delay!

After this additional detail, is your advice still the same?

Many thanks!

The 97 doesn't have the slipping grip rong like the CLD-79/99/D703/D704. There is something on the main board that fails over time. I have not had time to find it yet but I'd say ir's starting to fail.