Cleaning gungy Flexowriter

[Tom Jennings]

On Thu, 4 Nov 2004, Joe R. wrote:

>    I opened up the Flexowriter today and decided against bathing it in
> anything. There are too many open switches, electromagnets and other things
> that don't look like they'd be happy in water or mineral spirits. I cleaned
> it bit by bit with a toothbrush and a vaccuum cleaner to get the crud out.
> I sprayed WD-40 in places where it wouldn't hurt and then wiped it up with
> paper towels. That picked up a lot of the dust and dirt that was sticking
> to everything. It took all day but I finally got it reasonable clean. A lot
> of the mechanical stuff was frozen due to solidified grease. Even the motor
> was frozen. I had to take it out and turn by hand for a few minutes to get
> it lossened up enough to run.

That's a fine approach. Go buy a hypodermic type oil can (model
railroad places?) and use a nice light synth oil. Hit every
single pivot and rotating part!

The carriage on mine took extra work. THe carriage rides on a
pair of rails that have flat sliders, and therefore stickiness
really, well, sticks. I mixed a little oil with synth grease
and applied with a popcicle stick to the rails then slid the
carrige to the other side and did the same, etc. Took a lot of
lube to get it to slide freely.

The motor bearings probably want oil too. I slithered some in
there but I suppose I should take the motor out and do it right.