Ext floppy drive stuck?

[Blake]

Hey 68kmla blake here! About a week ago i purchased a 800k external floppy drive for my mac, the guy had said he used it years ago in collage and found the drive while moveing. I knew i was takeing a gamble buying one of these floppy drives but im unshure whats wrong with it. Im pretty positive its old grease but please correct me if im wrong. It seems like when i move the manual eject mechnisim it does not want to go past this point and the leaver up top cant move due to the greese being stuck. Please give me your info on this and the best way to get the greese off i will be replaceing it anyways

 

[mraroid]

I don't know if this drive is the exact match for your drive, but I saw this on You Tube:

mraroid

 

[Blake]

Yes I have seen this video but he does not explain how to get old grease off. Also my drive is pretty clean and doesn't really need the sterilization or compressed air.

 

[davidg5678]

Isopropyl Alcohol on a Q-Tip does a very good job removing the old grease. As clean as your drive may be, there is a high chance that there is dust buildup on many different places in the drive. Carefully following the above video is probably all you need to do in order to get everything up and running again. The video details how to disassemble the drive mechanism which will allow you to move the jammed mechanism back into position.

 

[Blake]

Thank you david i will clean the whole drive then. I will update you tomorrow 

Goodnight -blake

 

[Blake]

Hey one more thing can i use wd-40 for lubecrant or no

 

[Jinnai]

You might be able to, I'm not going to say you can't!

But what I do is, I use it to dilute the old grease, it's good at that, and then wipe it off and for actual lubricant I use white lithium grease, available at auto parts stores. It works well.

 

[Dog Cow]

Hey one more thing can i use wd-40 for lubecrant

No, it's not a suitable lubricant for the floppy drive.

 

[mraroid]

I agree, no WD40. 

mraroid

 

[Blake]

Ill plan on useing white lithum then thank you. 

 

[Blake]

 Well i tryed cleaning off the greese with    q-tips and alcohol for about 10 mins and the thing was still stuck. I then tryed running it under hot water  but the thing was still solid. Is there any other methods you have.

 

[Johnnya101]

I’ve never come across one that was ever stuck because of old grease. It might be something mechanical wrong with yours...?

 

[Blake]

Its possible but ive already inspected the all the gears and all of them were fine that most likely would have been the 1# cause of a stuck drive. 

 

[mraroid]

 Well i tryed cleaning off the greese with    q-tips and alcohol for about 10 mins and the thing was still stuck. I then tryed running it under hot water  but the thing was still solid. Is there any other methods you have.

Did you take the drive apart like was shown in the video?  Here is another video showing how to check the gears to see if they are still good:

 

[bibilit]

Never seen that kind of trouble.

Springs are not connected ?

Upper tray is straight ? bottom one is free ?

 

[Blake]

I carefully detached the springs to clean the top tray yes.  I reattached them to see if it would now work with the clean top tray but it was still stuck like glue and it refused to reject even with the gear box out. The bottom tray with the manual eject lever slides fine tough so i almost positive its the top tray. And yes the top tray is straight. 

 

[Blake]

Here skip to 4:16 the part he is moving is not moving for me http://youtu.be/OCPcc2LiBc

 

[Jinnai]

"video unavailable"

The mechanism is quite simple in these drives so a video would definitely help understand whats going on. I once had a drive that was stuck like a rock, but it was the larger, heavier 400k drive, I would not expect the same failure out of an 800k. Still, the procedure I used for that was was WD-40. Not for lubrication, but to thin out the old hard grease, and I had to essentially drench the whole thing in it. That drive never did start working haha, it has rotation speed issues now.

In my FDD, the metal part circled in red is nearly fused to the frame, and it's the part you'd need to move toward the back in order to simulate injecting a floppy disk. Does that part move for you?

In the picture you're missing the plastic thingy that the head rides on, not sure if that's just cause you removed it for cleaning.

 

[Blake]

Yes i removed the plastic thingy. i had to get the top tray out without damageing the head. I actually just got the thing un-stuck so i will update you soon on that. But yes the part you point out was working