10 Apr
2013
10 Apr
'13
6:58 p.m.
I have used a couple of things when fixing stuck floppy mechanisms with
good success. First it's best to thoroughly clean the mechanism of all the
caked/dried oil/grease. You can do this with some WD-40 or some other
penetrating oil like PB blaster if it's really caked on, and sometimes just
diluting it with the replacement oil is enough to loosen it up and wipe it
away. I then either replace with white lithium bearing grease (such as you
get from the auto parts store), or a lightweight oil like 3-in-1. Just
enough to lubricate the areas where there are rollers or metal guides
touching metal, and wipe off the excess.
On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 11:12 AM, Earl Baugh <earl at baugh.org> wrote:
I'm in the process of restoring some original Macs
(a 128 and 512) with a
friend and we have come across an issue with a floppy drive that is
strictly mechanical, and am wondering what others have done.
On the original 400K floppies there is a pin on the side that moves up and
down as the floppy goes in, and is ejected which in some sense locks the
floppy in either position. On one of these drives, the pivot point where
this pin connects to the rest of the mechanism isn't as "free" as it
should
be, and initially caused the drive to be either stuck in the open or closed
position. We've cleaned around the pin (Q-tips and isopropyl alcohol) and
then lubricated it with some WD-40 (using Q-tip as well) as a start. This
approach did free it up enough that it moves from "open" without the
floppy, but when the motor goes to eject it, the mechanism is still a bit
slow to move (which prevents the disk from ejecting by motor alone). Using
the good ol' paper-clip shows that that mechanism works fine, though is
just a little slow... which tells us that it's still not as free as it
should be.
We're trying to figure what type of lubricant would have been on this
before (or what would be the proper modern replacement)
Any thoughts?
Thanks.
Earl