I'm sure a lot of people have done this, but wanted to report my results anyway. The drive was not too bad of shape dirt wise, it was a little dusty but not near as bad as some I've seen. It was not only unable to read/write disks but it also could not auto eject and even manual eject was causing the disks to get stuck or jammed.
I watched several good videos on this on Youtube and went to work. The read/write head was dirty and a clean fixed that issue easily. The rest of the drive also was cleaned thoroughly including the worm gear drive for head movement. The auto eject gear was surprisingly springy and not crumbly or melted feeling but the grease had hardened and had to be cleaned out. To be save though, I got a 3D printed gear off Ebay and it seems to work perfectly. The once the drive was cleaned up I relubed it up with a mix of white lithium grease and sewing machine oil (the best of the repair vids suggested it). Disks could now read and write and auto eject was trying to work but the disks were jamming on release. Took me a bit but I recalled one of the videos that guy had a bend on his drive from it being dropped. Mine doesn't seem to have been dropped but sure enough I found a piece of metal the disk rides in on at the very entrance was bent. It looks like someone removed a disk by force and bent it in the process. I gave it a little tiny bend and probably more by luck I got it exact and the thing ejects like a dream now. Auto eject is able to get enough torque to pop the disk right out and I no longer have trouble loading it when the drive is in the case. Go figure. So if anyone has a drive that is jamming up, check this little outcropping of metal right above the innermost microswitches on the right side (for a 1.44 drive, not sure about 800k). If that is bent in any way it will cause loading and unloading issues and I would guess that people forcing disks out or maybe a disk with a faulty sliding door might catch it and bend the thing when it gets extracted.
Hope this will help someone who is trying to fix a drive that is jamming despite cleaning and lubrication!
I watched several good videos on this on Youtube and went to work. The read/write head was dirty and a clean fixed that issue easily. The rest of the drive also was cleaned thoroughly including the worm gear drive for head movement. The auto eject gear was surprisingly springy and not crumbly or melted feeling but the grease had hardened and had to be cleaned out. To be save though, I got a 3D printed gear off Ebay and it seems to work perfectly. The once the drive was cleaned up I relubed it up with a mix of white lithium grease and sewing machine oil (the best of the repair vids suggested it). Disks could now read and write and auto eject was trying to work but the disks were jamming on release. Took me a bit but I recalled one of the videos that guy had a bend on his drive from it being dropped. Mine doesn't seem to have been dropped but sure enough I found a piece of metal the disk rides in on at the very entrance was bent. It looks like someone removed a disk by force and bent it in the process. I gave it a little tiny bend and probably more by luck I got it exact and the thing ejects like a dream now. Auto eject is able to get enough torque to pop the disk right out and I no longer have trouble loading it when the drive is in the case. Go figure. So if anyone has a drive that is jamming up, check this little outcropping of metal right above the innermost microswitches on the right side (for a 1.44 drive, not sure about 800k). If that is bent in any way it will cause loading and unloading issues and I would guess that people forcing disks out or maybe a disk with a faulty sliding door might catch it and bend the thing when it gets extracted.
Hope this will help someone who is trying to fix a drive that is jamming despite cleaning and lubrication!
