I have a few Teac FD-55GFR 1.2mb floppy drives and have never seen the the top read head cover come off. Is it possible someone had pried it up, maybe a RMA thing or thinking it would help clean/fix it ? I would try some plastic epoxy on the 4 corners (with the metal plate in place) using a toothpick to apply very small amounts at those corners and let it sit in warm area for 24hours. Do not use superglue or superglue Gel ! If you get any under the metal cover you could ruin the upper read/write head.

I would use little silicone glue and put it back on. Plus silicone glue is soft helps with damping the vibration as well.

Cheers,

pentiumspeed wrote on 2020-03-15, 02:20:

I would use little silicone glue and put it back on. Plus silicone glue is soft helps with damping the vibration as well.

Cheers,

Problem is: if it already has some dried glue under the surround of the cap, glue of any other type rarely adheres to another old glue. On my drives it appears that the metal lid is actually press fit into the plastic molded top of the head. Is why I wondered about if it had been previously removed and then glued. There is also a reason it is metal, possibly grounded and acts as a rf shield too when originally installed. I still think a dab of something very light weight but strong at the four corners would be best.

Just put some Epoxy on the four corners, so that it will fill the gap and slightly go over the metal piece. That will last forever.

Sounds like epoxy is pretty well the consensus - I'll pick some up tomorrow, if I can with everything going on, and try it out! I sincerely appreciate everyone's input, and if successful, I appreciate it all the more. Thank you all!

And whatever adhesive was there is white and only on the areas of the metal bit where it meets a big chunk of that drive head housing; there's plenty of the same residue on the drive head housing itself. It reminds me a lot of old, dry thermal paste from the colour and general appearance. I wish I knew whether or not the previous owner pried that metal piece off or not.

Horun wrote on 2020-03-15, 02:18:

I have a few Teac FD-55GFR 1.2mb floppy drives and have never seen the the top read head cover come off. Is it possible someone had pried it up, maybe a RMA thing or thinking it would help clean/fix it ? I would try some plastic epoxy on the 4 corners (with the metal plate in place) using a toothpick to apply very small amounts at those corners and let it sit in warm area for 24hours. Do not use superglue or superglue Gel ! If you get any under the metal cover you could ruin the upper read/write head.

Mister, I have some good news - I followed your advice, at long last, and fixed it as described. And... it WORKS! I've had this drive for a few years now, and it's never worked until now. I even named the first disk I formatted with this drive, "HOLYCRAP". Thank you thank you!

I've attached a photo of my epoxy job. Not the neatest repair I've ever done, but far from the ugliest, and above all, it worked!

trigolet_rodolphe wrote on 2020-04-14, 22:33:

Mister, I have some good news - I followed your advice, at long last, and fixed it as described. And... it WORKS! I've had this drive for a few years now, and it's never worked until now. I even named the first disk I formatted with this drive, "HOLYCRAP". Thank you thank you!

I've attached a photo of my epoxy job. Not the neatest repair I've ever done, but far from the ugliest, and above all, it worked!

Great that you fix it ! Looks Good ! Yeah you did it the way I was thinking, and using a clear epoxy does not look bad at all. Glad it worked.

I just fixed a 5.25 floppy drive with some JB weld.
It worked great for glueing broken plastic piece to metal.

I did not think it was going to work as the plastic part was badly damaged but it worked.
This glue is very strong. I previously tried Crazy glue but that did not hold.

I have used JB weld on lots of stuff and it has worked on everything I applied it to.
Plastic, metal, and aluminum.
It bonds to metals fine.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2020-04-15, 04:02:

I just fixed a 5.25 floppy drive with some JB weld. It worked great for glueing broken plastic piece to metal. […]
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I just fixed a 5.25 floppy drive with some JB weld.
It worked great for glueing broken plastic piece to metal.

I did not think it was going to work as the plastic part was badly damaged but it worked.
This glue is very strong. I previously tried Crazy glue but that did not hold.

I have used JB weld on lots of stuff and it has worked on everything I applied it to.
Plastic, metal, and aluminum.
It bonds to metals fine.

I saw J-B Weld on Amazon and I think the only thing that turned me off to even trying it was that it's either black or tan and opaque. I wanted something as transparent as possible for the sake of aesthetic neatness, and if I wound up doing a sloppy repair, to camouflage it. I think I'll keep J-B Weld in mind if I wind up needing to repair anything less-delicate or a lot more broken.