10 Apr
2013
10 Apr
'13
10:04 p.m.
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
N omatter waht is says o nthe can, Wanton Destruciton 40 is nto a
usitable lubricant for small mechanisms. In fact this might be what is
gummign things up
On similar SOny drive,s I take them apart as far as possible and creally
clean the parts with propan-2-ol. Keep on workign them back and forth to
get the gunged-up grease out.
Normally they will work properly with no lubricant at all. And wear on
osemthing like an eject mechansim should be minimal.
-tony