Macintosh Plus Floppy Drive Issues

[tolozen]

Hi all,
Today I received a Macintosh Plus as a Christmas gift. Really awesome gift, it's a truly iconic system and I haven't had a desktop of its age before. It has the Kensington System Saver Mac fan addon on top as well.

Unfortunately, the floppy drive (non-high density) seems to be non-functional for the most part. When inserting a setup disk I got with it, it doesn't read the drive, and it's hard to insert the disk all the way. Every one or two seconds, the drive makes a grating noise I imagine in the motor attempting to eject the drive. I dismantled the case and cleaned out the drive as best as I could and lubed it up a bit with WD-40. I looked at the ejection motor but I don't have any replacement parts. Beyond just needing a quick clean, it looks ok. Does anyone have any advice? I am looking into getting a damaged Mac and just cannibalizing the drive out of it, but I was wondering if anyone has any advice. Thanks.

 

[weckart]

WD-40 is not a lubricant despite its claims. It is more of a solvent. It forces water out and penetrates seized parts temporarily. You will need a tiny amount of lithium grease on moving parts after cleaning out any cruft thoroughly. The key thing is grease, not oil, which is too thin for long term lubrication.

I had similar non-functioning drives on my Mac SEs and a couple of external floppy drives I picked up. I just looked at guides online (maybe iFixit has something) and stripped them completely looking for missing/seized springs etc. Luckily, all problems were mechanical and solved by clearing hardened and soiled grease and regreasing. All are working. Old tech is surprisingly resilient. If you are very unlucky and the motor has burnt out, you will need to source another and buying another drive might work out cheaper.

 

[tolozen]

WD-40 is not a lubricant despite its claims. It is more of a solvent.

I knew that, but didn't really think about it at the time. I'll keep that in mind, thanks. It wasn't really too gummed up, actually.

If you are very unlucky and the motor has burnt out, you will need to source another and buying another drive might work out cheaper.

It turns out that the smallest gear in the ejection motor has several teeth broken off, so that's definitely it. I actually came into another (external, and much dirtier) floppy drive for the Mac Plus and discovered it, too, has the exact same gear with teeth broken off. I'm trying to get some of the specific gears ordered in, and hopefully that will fix it. If not, I fear the motor itself is done. I looked a little bit for 3D printer models for the gears, but didn't find any. Anyone let me know if those do exist.

 

[m1maverick]

The lubrication on these drives tends to dry up and / or get dirty causing the mechanism to not function smoothly. Cleaning them is easy, here's an excellent video on how to do so:

Tutorial: Cleaning, lubricating and fixing an Apple 800k 3.5" floppy drive

This guide is applicable to almost every floppy drive from the Mac Plus on.

As for the gears 3D printed ones are readily available from Ebay. Search for "macintosh 1.44k floppy drive eject gears" on Ebay should turn up a number of sellers. If you're ever searching for other parts I'd recommend:

Apple Rescue of Denver

NOTE: I have a loose affiliation with this business as I have performed work on many systems they sell, including cleaning and lubricating floppy drives.

 

[tolozen]

Search for "macintosh 1.44k floppy drive eject gears" on Ebay should turn up a number of sellers.

I've already seen a tutorial quite similar to that one, but thanks for the link anyways. I'll use that one if I need a refresher. Looking that up on eBay did give me some results, and much better than that they actually have a link to a 3D printer model for it! I know someone with one so I can just do it myself, hopefully. Thanks for the suggestions.

Edit: Unfortunately the gear is just too small for the WEEDO Tina2 3D Printer I have at my disposal. Just ordering some off of eBay instead. Hopefully those come in, work, and fix my issues. If not, not sure what to do...

 

[m1maverick]

I've already seen a tutorial quite similar to that one, but thanks for the link anyways. I'll use that one if I need a refresher. Looking that up on eBay did give me some results, and much better than that they actually have a link to a 3D printer model for it! I know someone with one so I can just do it myself, hopefully. Thanks for the suggestions.

Edit: Unfortunately the gear is just too small for the WEEDO Tina2 3D Printer I have at my disposal. Just ordering some off of eBay instead. Hopefully those come in, work, and fix my issues. If not, not sure what to do...

The key is to ensure the load / eject mechanism is working smoothly. The gear in question is designed to give should the mechanism become jammed / gummed up in order to protect the eject motor.

 

[tolozen]

The key is to ensure the load / eject mechanism is working smoothly. The gear in question is designed to give should the mechanism become jammed / gummed up in order to protect the eject motor.

Interesting, I didn't realize that's what the gear was for. As far as I can tell, the sliding motion is relatively smooth on both floppy drives I have access to, I took them apart, cleaned them up, and reassembled them. They each have different terrible sounds, and neither one feels like it takes the floppy in nicely. Neither one ejects on its own, either.