For anyone who might be interested,
I managed to heal the VCR myself. On the bottomside of the chassis is a springloaded friction-coupling between 2 coaxially arranged toothed wheels. Grease/oil had found its way into it lowering the friction force. Soaking the coupling in white spirit for a few minutes restored the friction and the pick-up reel again works as expected.
To gain access to the friction coupling first 1 black and 2 white toothed wheels had to be removed and of course the bottom plate.
Regards
fbr