I'm working on a dead IIci floppy drive. I already disassembled the floppy loading mechanism and lubricated it, and now it moves smoothly (it was totally jammed before). Now I seem to have two problems, and they may be related. The first is that the auto inject motor seems to be stuck. I can't spin it with my fingers, and it prevents disks from fully lowering onto the spinner - it gets almost there before stopping. If I remove the motor, I'm able to fully lower. The second is that the read head motor doesn't seem to be spinning. I haven't tried manually spinning it for fear of alignment issues, but if I insert a disk, I see the disk spin, but the head does not move. Should I just try to lubricate it or is this likely to be some other issue?
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IIci floppy drive troubles
- Thread starter tattar8
- Start date
LaPorta
Well-known member
You can move the disk head motor manually without any issues at all. To make it easier to figure out, I would remove the head first: locate the two black screws holding the rod the head moves back and forth on and remove those, and the head should come right out. DON'T remove the silver screw holding in the block of black plastic right behind and to the side of the head: that is the zero track guide, and you will have a very tough time making it work if that is out of alignment. Once the head is out, try and spin the shaft of the motor. It should move easily. If not, I usually use very find instrument oil at the entrance to the motor from the shaft, as well as where the shaft sits at it's other end.
As for the auto-inject motor, they normally can NOT be moved by hand. If they can, it usually indicates a broken gear inside the housing. I would look inside the housing by taking the metal cover plate off the bottom of the housing. Be sure to unclip the single, large clip at one end (I learned that the hard way by breaking one of the smaller clips, which aren't supposed to be bent back). Inside there, you may find that there is a lot of dust or other debris gumming up the works. Clean that out. One way to check to movement is to remove the middle, upside-down gear. Then, both sides of the gears should move easily independently. If they don't there may be a more deep issue.
As for the auto-inject motor, they normally can NOT be moved by hand. If they can, it usually indicates a broken gear inside the housing. I would look inside the housing by taking the metal cover plate off the bottom of the housing. Be sure to unclip the single, large clip at one end (I learned that the hard way by breaking one of the smaller clips, which aren't supposed to be bent back). Inside there, you may find that there is a lot of dust or other debris gumming up the works. Clean that out. One way to check to movement is to remove the middle, upside-down gear. Then, both sides of the gears should move easily independently. If they don't there may be a more deep issue.
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