Bad heads on RL02: Worth replacing

[Guy Sotomayor Jr]

> On Dec 16, 2019, at 3:07 PM, Chris Zach via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
> So one of my RL02 drives (bought on Ebay years ago) is eating RL02 packs. Makes tings, then the disks have errors in my other RL02 drive. Took a bit to figure out which drive was eating what, but I'm 100% certain it's this newer drive.
> 
> So pulled the heads. The top one had significant gunk on it, the bottom one a bit. Pics below.
> 
> Top: https://i.imgur.com/FELhF9X.jpg
> Bottom: https://i.imgur.com/Tmsf5Nd.jpg
> 
> With alcohol and lintless swabs I managed to clean both of the heads up.
> 
> Top: https://i.imgur.com/gmACM4R.jpg
> Bottom: https://i.imgur.com/SfZQV5F.jpg
> 
> Then put them back in the drive and mounted a scratch pack. With finger on the load/run I let the drive spin up and when I heard tinging I immediately spun down. Hopefully I didn't trash my scratch pack.
> 
> Top head has gunk, bottom one had a few flecks, but looks pretty ok.
> Top: https://i.imgur.com/EAvgmuH.jpg
> Bottom: (picture didn't upload)
> 
> Obviously the head is crashing, any idea why and if it's worth replacing the head or should I put this drive out for parts? Yes I cleaned the RL02 pack before putting it in.
> 
> Never dull.

I would try replacing the head(s).

TTFN - Guy