Cassette stuck in factory tape deck

My Toyota tape deck has been getting cranky as of late, regularly emitting a number of clicking sounds before spitting out the tape adapter for playing music from my phone. It usually accepts it on the 3rd or 4th try, but a couple days ago, while the adapter was already in the deck, I turned the key to fire the glow plugs and the deck started clicking like it was going to eventually spit out the tape, but when I turned the key to start the engine the deck momentarily lost power (all power diverted to starter motor) before coming back on, but didn't end up spitting out the tape.

The result is now the deck doesn't seem to realize it has a tape in it. Hitting the Eject button does nothing, and hitting the Tape button also does nothing, only the radio works. I've tried turning the ignition on/off, pressing and holding various buttons, even disconnecting the battery for 10 minutes, but nothing seems to work. It's an electrical eject mechanism, so I can't just mash a mechanical eject button to get the tape out. Any ideas??

Here is a photo of my radio model:

It will have one or more rubber drive belts to run the mechanism. These stretch and dry out with age until they no longer transfer the rotation as needed. Pull the unit out and remove the covers, have a look for any such belts. I believe some traders on Ebay still sell replacement belts or kits of various sizes, meantime you may be able to operate the appropriate pulleys by hand, perhaps with the aid of a small screwdriver to get your adapter out.
Alternatively now is a good time to update as hardly anyone uses cassettes any more, and you can get the excellent Aerpro branded adapter cables to allow connecting a new unit without any cutting or joining of wires, I can't recommend them highly enough.
More recent units often have 3.5mm auxiliary input jacks and / or Bluetooth which will eliminate the need for that adapter and give much better audio quality.

The trigger that tells it there’s a tape in it probably reset when it started the eject sequence. I would open it up and as mentioned, try forcing the carriage to raise the cassette up either by leverage or rotating the gears.

Maybe do take the opportunity to upgrade into the 21st century. One of the best upgrades I’ve done to my van is a Chinese double din unit with Navigation (uses Tom Tom software I think), DVD player, Bluetooth music & phone calls, SD card music input, USB input, aux mini-jack input, reverse camera integration etc. That last thing, reverse camera, is worth it just for that. Installed a button camera in the left hand number plate light lens and it makes reversing an absolute breeze day or night. Especially onto a trailer hitch.
It cost $130 and the sound is actually great. 4x50w & also has pre-outs for external amps & sub.
Jump in the van & it syncs & starts playing podcasts or music automatically from my phone. Makes it feel like a new, modern van!

djathens - i once inserted a Smashing Pumpkins cassette into a cranky old Kombi tape deck, and all i got back was Nick Cave

so my best advice is to insert an old Kyle Minogue cassette and hope for some classic Kate Bush

hope this helps

I got the deck out and was able to disassemble it and extract the tape adapter, but after reassembly the tape unit was still confused about what state it was in. After resetting the tape carriage to be ready to accept a tape, it would only draw the tape in a cm or so, and then spit it out. I reset the carriage back to the position it was in when it failed, and that just yielded intermittent clicks upon powering on. The carriage portion, and drive spindles are all gear driven, so no belts to replace there. Unfortunately I think this unit has reached EOL.

I decided to 'join the 21st century'    and ordered a single-DIN media receiver, a Sony DSX-GS80. Will be installing it this Friday and will post a few pics.

One interesting thing about the LH-series Super Custom Limited's radio/amp setup, is that it has a different wiring harness/plug than the other Hiaces. When looking on the Aerpro website that AgathaAlice suggested, the harnesses all have two connectors that plug into the radio. On my van, there is only one plug for the radio. I couldn't for the life of me find a wiring diagram for a single-plug harness within my FSM files, nor on the web, so I took my test light and mapped out the hot lead, ACC, and Illumination wires, shown below.

I'd be very surprised if Aerpro didn't have one, maybe drop them an email on the contact form on their website as they probably only show the common ones on the site.
https://aerpro.com/contact
Maybe when they reply you could send them the photos above to help them identify.

Edit: As you're in the States I see there are other manufacturers of similar product which may be available to you locally, Aerpro are in Australia so shipping could be a problem in these COVID-19 times.

With the Sony, I will have to to bypass the OEM amps and run wires directly to the speakers, so my plan is just to tap into the ACC and ILLUM wires on the Toyota harness, and then wire up the rest separately.

Hopefully it's not too tricky to get the unit mounted correctly. From reading other posts, the OEM brackets don't sound like they will line up with the mounting points on the chassis. Mentally preparing myself to channel my inner MacGyver

You can do it you can do it.

I had to dremel cut the fascia panel about 3mm extra in height to get the double din to fit. I remember the bracket lining up relatively  well tho. For some reason Toyota seems to do non-standard stereo head unit sizes - usually in width.

Maybe we need thread of photos of stereo head unit solutions. A while ago I also added a din sized insert right down in front of the gear selector replacing one of the storage slots, that shows yaw angle, altimeter, outside temperature. It’s the style that has the 3 golf-ball sized spheres from an Isuzu of the period. Completely useless but the kid in me likes it.

Hang on, I shouldn’t say useless. When I had retinal detachment surgery and gas pumped into my eyeball, I had post operative restrictions, one of which was that I couldn’t go above a certain altitude. It was mainly directed at taking flights but when I jumped in the van and looked at the altimeter I realised that one of the local roads about 30 mins north of the city was above that limit! It’s a common weekend getaway wine growing area and the hill road is a very popular driving/riding road. Without that reminder I could well have taken a trip over! Ha.

I had to use 20mm hardwood as a spacer to fit a standard size (Sansui) radio in.

Bear in mind that the facias of double din radios have two slightly different sizes.
One will fit, the other doesn't.

So read the specs on the radios very carefully, as I recall there was a Sansui and Nakamichi branded units that worked well and fitted. With the 20mm spacers, of course! I had to buy extra long screws (m4 or m5) and I think I used the brackets off the old radio.

I used a Toyota Aygo electrical adapter to plug the new radio in.

Unit arrived and I'm so relieved to say that it fits the Toyota brackets perfectly! The little prongs on the brackets even had corresponding holes in the chassis. I was a little nervous when the owners manual stated that this radio might not fit in certain Japanese vehicles. I figured that was going to be my fate. Phew!

Install & pics tomorrow!

Don't forget the screws through those brackets into the head unit, you haven't fitted them in those pics.
While you've got it out have a think about whether it is best with the head unit on top, or the pocket on top as now's your easy chance to swap them over. It depends on what you put in the pocket of course.
So yours had an external amplifier? I'm surprised as there are not very many contacts on that connector in your pic, was there a second connector which you didn't show?
For the speakers why not find the amp and unplug it then find the speaker connections there? Surely that would be a lot easier and tidier than running new wires?

It's just the one connector, it's got enough pins to send the audio signals to the amps, which I assume have another connector for power, etc. I put the screws to it after the photo shoot

I'm choosing to run my own wires so I can run a thicker gauge, the factory wires are just so thin, plus the front amp is buried at the back of the dash, not motivated to dig in and try and figure out the unintuitive wire colors w/o a diagram. The rear amp is behind the driver's side rear trim panel, so honestly it's easier to just run new wiring under the carpet.

Install complete! Everything fit nicely and the stereo sounds fantastic. That dash fascia is pretty fiddly going back in. It was a real chore to get the hazard switch hooked back up, ended up lassoing the connector with a zip tie to pull it back through the hole.

The ability to customize sound & display settings on this unit are incredible. You can set a high-pass filter on the speakers, a low pass on the sub channel, and set the filter slope for each. Adjustable gain/phase on the sub, plus a 10-band EQ. The tweaking possibilities are endless!

In addition to the IR remote, you can also control most of the unit's functions from an app on your phone, allowing me to set a custom balance/fader profile via dragging my finger around a quadrant until I'm in the sweet spot. This will be great for times when I'm the only person in the van.

Looks good.
Whoever decided on the DIN standard had a really good idea, prior to that everyone's units were different shapes and sizes.