RL drive lubrication

Tony Duell wrote: Well, as it turns out, I *was* partially brainless with this episode (more below). I have one of the older type, and the other three are of the new type. But, turns out that it doesn't matter anymore, in terms of which printset to use, since I think I have resolution to both drives' problems (more below). Yes, I do have a copy of the pocket service guide, thanks to bitsavers. Again, no longer required (more below), but very handy to have around. I have already benefited from it. Okay, here's the good stuff you've been waiting for. Just to recap: Drive 0 would not show READY. Trying to read from it anyway with RT11, gave a 'drive not responding' kind of message (don't have the exact text in front of me at the moment). And it put out a fair amount of whining/rumbling when spun up. Drive 1 would not show READY. (here's where I was brainless) I never actually tried to read this drive, since I never saw READY (I was already 'conditioned' by what I saw with Drive 0). This drive, too, put out a significant whine as it spun. Here's what I did: I opened each drive up, and did two things to each: 1) With the upper and lower head 'trays' propped apart, I manually exercised the r/w head carriage, moving it back and forth a number of times, and 2) I put a couple of drops of oil on the top of each motor's shaft, which was easily reached with the service cover off. Interestingly, Drive 0's head carriage *did indeed* have some fair resistance to motion when I first tried to move it. As I exercised it a few times it loosened up and moved pretty well after about a dozen full travel cycles. I actually believe this was a problem. If the heads couldn't budge, certainly the drive wouldn't come READY. I guess the lubrication on the rails or the pull cable cylinder (or whatever it is called) were somewhat gummed up. I didn't apply any additional lubrication, since it loosened up pretty well after a few cycles, and I didn't want to introduce into this area anything that wasn't according to spec (whatever that may be). Drive1's head carriage didn't show much resistance to motion when I manually exercised it. This was useful information to me since it gave me a sort of benchmark of comparison for what I experienced with Drive 0. So, the bottom line: Drive 0, having been reconnected to the 11/23, still didn't show READY, but I *was* able to talk to it. I even went so far as to image a whole disk cartridge to my PC without difficulty. Checking the READY indicator bulb, I discovered the bulb was burned out. Duh! (I told you I was partially brainless during this whole episode.) However, after replacing the bulb with a new one (I have a supply for just this purpose), I still don't get a READY light. More to look into, but the drive now actually works! Drive 1, also works just fine. (Uh, oh, more brainless-ness ahead...) It, too, had a burned out bulb! And since I never actually tried to read from this drive, after having no luck from Drive 0 (which had the same symptoms at the time), I just assumed it was broken too. It was probably only a bad bulb all along. A replacement bulb gave me a nice READY indication. How stupid is that!? The good news from going through this whole process is that I believe the small amount of lubrication that I applied to both drives' motors did the trick. Each drive is now quiet, at least as quiet as RL drives usually are. I *do* believe that the head carriage of Drive 0, was stuck, but it's hard to prove it. It, the whole drive, works now (sans READY light), and that's a whole lot better than a few days ago. I do think that a bit of lubrication to the drives' motors was definitely useful. I'll keep working on the Drive 0 READY indicator light. Probably some broken or loose contact in the switch itself, or the front panel switch assembly. I'll pull that and check everything. Thanks for all of your input, Tony! J.