10 Apr
2013
10 Apr
'13
7:50 p.m.
WD-40 is not a lubricant. It is a water dispersant. Hence the name
WD. It will dry in a short amount of time and leave it gummed up again.
It also does one other thing, as it looses it solvents, it leave water as the
last part to evaporate. This tends to cause corrosion.
After using it, wipe it off and use a proper lubricant.
Also make sure that the spray does not get on the heads as it will
cause damage to the floppy you put in. It must be completely cleaned
from the surface of the head if sprayed anywhere near
the heads.
Dwight
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:58:48 -0500
Subject: Re: What is the correct material to use..
From: oltmansg at gmail.com
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
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
>