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Some pictures of the oily bits

A quick update - Thanks to the spare machine I got from Alf yesterday, I have managed to repair the 444 at least mechanically.

I swapped the drive motor over as well, this has proved conclusively that the original motor needs new bearings - I will see if I can strip the motor and get these replaced - whilst I am not expecting a silent machine, I think one that can't be heard three streets away is a good thing.

I now need to build a test power supply to see if I can get the machine to work in local mode.

Well, I tried local copy mode, with an 80-0-80v supply, the machine is certainly more lively, but it is nowhere near right

At present the carriage is not moving as each character it typed, and line feed works when it wants to - which isn't very often.

When characters on the keyboard are pressed, often the wrong character in the print basket is struck - I need to read the manual now to find out how the machine is supposed to work.

I think most of the problems are just down to sticky parts - there are many areas that were all gummed up and not operating smoothly - the tape reader fingers were all jammed up.

I never realised how much work is involved in getting a long unused machine back to working order!

A little more progress this evening - Line feed now works, and I have found out why the carriage is not advancing after typing a character....

Seems for some reason every time any key is pressed the machine sends a carriage return - odd!

Lots of gunge and hardened grease has been removed, and I am about halfway through the lubrication points.

I think perhaps there is some form of problem with the mark-space settings of the transmitter unit - it cant be a mechanical fault causing all these random faults!

More progress - have found the cause of the continuous carriage return fault, which is linked to the incorrect characters being operated in the type basket.

At some point, the carriage must have been removed, it would seem whomever had it apart before didn't get all of the bellcranks back into the code unit.

This looks like a job for small fingers!

Well, the carriage has been removed, cleaned, and refitted - this time, with everything in the right place, et voila! a 99% accurate representation of the keys that are being pressed.

I think now it is just a case of adjustments to perfect the machine.

Lessons learned:

Hydraulic Jack Oil is a perfect lubricant for all oil points - it is odourless and clear in colour.

A proper oil can makes much less mess

White Spirit and brake and clutch cleaner are your friends