Actually, Funai (the last maker of VCRs) greatly simplified the VHS tape mechanism over the 30 years they made it. The last machines they made in the 2000s are extremely simple mechanically and since Funai was the only maker of them, they are practically all identical.
So if you gather a few of the new old stock players still available you have a collection of players with spare parts. And they are very mechanically simple - sure there's some oddball shaped cogs and sprockets and gears that perform the complex operations in a simple way. but they beat what an 80s era VCR had in mechanical complexity.
The last VCRs often only had 3 motors - the one driving the rotary head, one driving the capstan roller and the takeup spools (and do the fast-forward/rewind). The final motor handles the tape insertion, loading and threading, and ejection of the tape. All of it done with precisely engineered injection molded gears designed for easy mass production.
An 80's era VCR has easily a half dozen motors more with dozens of switches, limit sensors, and other things. The gears and cogs are much simpler, but the mechanism and timings are so much more complicated and has to be coordinated by a processor.
And head cleaning is easily done with the lid off - you can easily clean the heads on the drum with a little isopropyl alcohol and a q-tip.
It's a magic of mass production that the final VCRs gave great performance and everything had been simplified to a single sided circuit board and a mechanism consisting of only a few gears and motors. The complexity of operation has been simplified to a plastic gear that choreographs the operation.
