boardhead

It is possible that the cassette adapter would work with a busted tape player depending on how the tape player is broken. For the adapter to work, the electronics of the tape player need to be working, but the motor drive doesn't. The adapter generates a magnetic field that is sensed by the playback head in the tape deck. I don't think it relies on the tape transport mechanism at all, which is the most common failure mode for tape players (I used to repair them for a living, so I know a bit about this). So as long as the playback head and amplifier are good in the tape deck, then I think it should work.

You can hook up your MP3 player easily in 2 ways, either through the radio with an FM broadcaster, or through the tape deck with a tape adapter. I have a tape adapter myself I use for the car, it works OK but the FM adapter may be better because then you don't have a wire and you can place the MP3 player anywhere you want. You should be able to get either type of adapter at any store that sells car stereo accessories.

Pictures would be nice if possible! Armband? The Yamaha MP3 player that for my Venture came with two adhesive-backed strips of velcro. I couldn't figure out what to do with this velcro, so I made a strap out of some extra velcro I had lying around, passed the velcro through the slots in the back of the rubber MP3 cover, and strapped it to the handlebars (see attached picture). I'm not real happy with this, but at least I can coil up the extra connector cable and hold it under the strap. I find the Yamaha MP3 player to be a pain. It is difficult to turn on (it sometimes gets into a state where it doesn't seem to want to turn on, and I have to turn the switch off then on to smarten it up), and it re-starts at the same song each time it is turned on. That really sucks because it is a pain to skip through a large number of songs. I have 255 songs on it now and I've only ever heard the first few of them over and over and over.