Selectric trouble

[Robert Ollerton]

I have a Selectic II that I use now and then.  Similar problem.  I packed a
few paper towels in there and sprayed a fair amount of good (not WD40)
lubricant (LPS brand if I recall), let it soak for an hour and than wiped
the insides out and removed the towels.  It works great.

This is not a restoration or preservation, but rather how I got a junk
selectric II that I got for free to work wonderfully.  Got a new ribbon at
office depot too.   If there was one thing I would like to do would be to
have the platen turned down to level out all the pocks from years of use.



On Sat, Mar 1, 2008 at 12:10 PM, John Floren <slawmaster at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 3/1/08, Barry Watzman <Watzman at neo.rr.com> wrote:
> > I am not a selectric guru, but I have one and I think that the most
> likely
> >  cause is that the lubricant has dried out, isn't lubricating and in
> fact is
> >  acting like glue or adhesive.  The "right" way to fix this is to have
> the
> >  whole mechanism immersed in a bath of solvent (quite a few things have
> to be
> >  disassembled and removed before this is done) to clean off the old
> >  lubricant, and then relubricated afterwards.  This used to be common,
> but
> >  there are not many places now that still do it and it's expensive
> (probably
> >  a couple hundred dollars).  I have a full IBM service manual for the
> >  Selectric II, which is virtually identical to your machine, but I only
> have
> >  it in hard copy, not PDF, and it's bound.  Perhaps there is a PDF copy
> of
> >  this manual on the 'net somewhere.  A guy who did the immersion
> cleaning
> >  used to advertise his service on E-Bay, you might to a search there, or
> a
> >  google search.
> >
> >
>
> Now, interestingly, I turned it on this morning and was able to type
> fine again for
> maybe 8 lines. As I typed, the carriage return speed got slower and slower
> until
> it would no longer reach the left margin. This leads me to believe
> that there might be some sort of problem where a pulley has grease
> that eventually warms up and causes it to slip, or something of that
> nature.
> I'll try to look for disassembly instructions online and see if I can
> open it up and clean out the pulleys related to carriage return.
>
> John
> --
> Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
>