I return from a long, long absence with a newly acquired CLD-D501 that doesn't want to eject the tray. I've already done a bunch to this player including greasing everything I could (going so far as to completely disassemble the clamper assembly, remove all old grease, and apply new grease to every pivot point) but it still struggles to eject the tray, and I often have to manually push the clamper mechanism through its final half-inch of travel and/or pull down the front flap to get the tray to eject. I thought it might be the loading belt but I removed said belt and it still feels very tight and holds its shape, so I don't think it's that. Is it possible something is misaligned? I can't find a service manual for this player without paying money so I've kind of been fixing by eye and gut feeling up to this point.

Service manual will not be of any help other than the exploded views.

I have completely disassembled the clamper section, thoroughly cleaned and greased, and installed new belts on these and they still occasionally hang. I think I went with a 4.0 belt even though these models use PEB1013 which is supposed to be SCQ4.3 (I think this would be way too big.)

I have cleaned and greased parts of the mechanism chassis that I can get to (i.e. the slide cam and roller plate), but I have not performed a full rebuild of one. Personally, I wouldn't recommend doing this since you can lose the small washers or springs easily.

Yeah, the only part I disassembled was the clamper and even that was a bit intimidating.

I might try your belt suggestion but first I should actually test if the thing plays movies, I spent last night just trying to get it to eject reliably.

Does it sound like the belt is slipping along w/ a humming noise as it tries to eject?

If so, the issue could be the clamper assembly needing a good regreasing due to the magnetic clamper being stronger than other typical Pioneer clamps. My two Denon LA-3100's are having this issue and I'll have to get around to fixing this soon as it's driving me crazy trying to get the tray out (it eventually does pop open after some back and forth but the bigger issue is CD's getting struck on the clamper and then falling off to drop drop below the tray).

Did you also clean the pulleys?

Or accidently get grease on the pulleys or belt?

If that happened, that explains a lot.

The two pulleys that the loading belt fits onto? I didn't, but they looked fine to me, they didn't have any of that sludgy brownish old grease on them.

I did put a little bit of grease on the gears that move the tray in and out but I didn't put any on the pulleys, at least not intentionally...probably should check there isn't any accidental overspray.

Definitely want to avoid using spray grease except maybe for the alpha turn gear assembly in the back.

I'll have to get the white lithium grease in the tube for projects like this, but I don't currently have any so I was trying to make do with my can of white lithium grease with the little straw for (relatively) precise greasing.

I use MG Chemicals 8461 (under $10), but whatever you get make sure it includes the long applicator that attaches to the tube.

I have several players to work on right now, but when I get time I think I will make a mechanism disassembly guide for these units. That orange "syrup" is everywhere and ideally it should all be replaced with white lithium grease.

Yeah, I already replaced a whole bunch of that gunk but I bet there's a bunch more of it elsewhere that I can't see without disassembling the player beyond how far I was willing to go previously (removing the clamper assembly and disk tray).

Yes indeed. Just keep it in regular use for now.

It took a month for me to get back to the CLD-D501 but I had just gotten a new disc today and decided to give the player another look over. I followed this guide ([CLD-D501][CLD-D502][CLD-D701][CLD-D702] Clamper Disassembly) and re-greased the clamper the right way this time, but I'm still having issues with the loading tray and on top of that, a disc won't play when placed inside. I don't get any kind of "No Disc" message, I just get absolutely nothing. The "PLAY" message appears briefly before going back to an all-zeroes timer and the disc never starts spinning. While the loading issues might just mean I need a belt, the fact that I can't get a disc to play has me really concerned...

You might not have installed the clamper assembly back correctly. Make sure the peg goes back into the white slider on the left of the player.

If a visual helps, it looks like this .....

Wait, so is the rest position for that big white part supposed to look like that? Mine uh...doesn't. Maybe that's my problem, I did give that section a proper greasing too but it might be out of alignment somehow...

This is how mine looks in the rest position, with the tray retracted:

https://i.imgur.com/UTH4chh.jpg

EDIT: Oh wait, that's with the tray out, my bad. Also my picture is from before I put the clamper back in, but the clamper pin is definitely fitted into the slot on the white part.

No it looks fine in your photo. His photo shows the clamp not engaged.

Just in case I took two new photos with the clamper and the white part in both "tray in" and "tray out" positions to make sure everything is aligned properly.

https://i.imgur.com/Ld0shOQ.jpg

Tray in

https://i.imgur.com/l1AEroe.jpg

Tray out

It looks fine to me. Also, these particular parts don't require any special adjustment. They just need to be assembled properly.

Have you looked @ your loading belt again? I thought I recalled there was a possible chance that you might have oiled it by mistake.