VOGONS

My first 5.25" Drive Repair, Help (Will be!) needed :)

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First post, by appiah4

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I finally got my hands on three, albeit reportedly broken, 5.25" drives. 2 of them are TEAC FD-55GFRs, one of which seems to have no mechanical issues, and the other looks dead as a doorknob. So I decided to go with the Panasonic one instead.. Here's what I did, and where I am:

- The drive's upper reading head's plastic clip was under the metal rail instead of over it. This meant that the upper magnetic head was hanging lower than it should be: Indeed, the upper/lower heads were in contact with each other and a disk could not be inserted between them.
- I fixed this by bending the arm until I could lift it to above the metal rail, which made inserting disks possible.
- I proceeded to clean the rails with cotton buds and alcohol
- At this point I realized that the upper head was kind of hanging. I don't know how to explain it, but it's not sitting flush against its housing. I will post pictures later, but I don't think this is intended? I fear it may be damage from someone trying to insert disks while the heads were pressed together..
- I gave the drive power and the the motor that moves the heads gave me an INCREDIBLY loud and bad noise..
- I checked and the mechanism was very badly stuck. I added some silicon grease to the shafts and started turning the screw with a pliers. I did this a few times for the whole extent of the movement , then powered the drive back on, and the head made its return to 0 movement, albeit loudly
- I insterted a disk, then tried to eject it but the mechanism that holds it in place did not lift up when I released the handle. A lot of silicon greasing later, now it releases the disk if I unlatch the handle somewhat forcefully. SOMETHING in the mechanism feels like metal rubbing on metal and getting stuck, but I can't locate where this is and what to grease to fix it 🙁

At this point I called it a night and went to sleep. I will try to hook the drive up to a motherboard and see if it reads and writes tonight, but I have little hope. I just thought I would start this topic to get help from VOGONS' collective experience in dealing with 5.25" drives. I only had one in my first 486 and I probably used it a total of 10 times. I did not have one for my 800XL or my A500; we had one in our XT but I never took it out or apart as I was a very small kid at the time. So I am open to all suggestions and advice, particularly regarding whether what I noticed about the upper head is normal or not.. Even if this fails I have the two TEACs to go through as well, so stick with me cause I really hope one of these drives gets fixed and goes into my 286 build 😅 Cheers!

Reply 1 of 2, by konc

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I've seen this before, a bent disk hit the upper head during insertion and it came off. Now it's hanging from its ribbon cable. Gluing it back where it was is one thing, then comes alignment.

Last edited by konc on 2023-08-02, 12:39. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 2 of 2, by Deunan

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appiah4 wrote on 2023-08-02, 07:08:

I finally got my hands on three, albeit reportedly broken, 5.25" drives. 2 of them are TEAC FD-55GFRs, one of which seems to have no mechanical issues, and the other looks dead as a doorknob. So I decided to go with the Panasonic one instead.

TEACs are rather easy to service, except the "sponge" blocks crumbling to dust. Can be replaced but in most cases it's possible to do without them. Also the clamping arm can get sligtly bent out of shape over time, which (along with missing sponges) can lead to higher noise levels on warped floppies and even reading issues with head 1 (upper).

In general, if you are willing to learn and can do realigment (scope required, a known good floppy, patience and some common sense) you can pretty much take any drive apart down to screws. The more mechanical aptitude you have, the easier it will be, but anyone can do it if they are willing to stop and think rather than use force. Things you might want to avoid:
1) moving (that means even unscrewing) track zero sensor
2) moving stepper motor
3) disconnecting stepper from head assembly
4) disconnecting upper head from the sled/lower head
5) disassembling spindle motor (not just removing it from chassis, that part is easy)

1-4 will require realigment (which can be simple job or few hours spent depending how much stuff was disturbed). 5 is tricky as the flywheel screws can be left-threaded and are also glued, but it's rare to need to do that.
Clamping arm has this rotating plastic bit that holds the floppy to spindle, this can get noisy (and should be cleaned anyway). You need proper lubricants - silicon grease will work most of the time but for metal-on-metal parts mineral oil based grease is preferable. Stepper motor might need some light oil, this is rare and in general you don't oil these but if your choice is to replace the motor, or try to somehow remove/replace the bearing without access to proper tools and a press, then oil is acceptable and will usually work well. Just don't flood the motor with it. On the other hand the plastic bit I mentioned can't be just oiled (it can be but the results will be unsatisfactory), you need to disassemble it and use some thicker grease here. And pretty please do not lubricate the head sled rails - remove the sled, clean the metal rods and brass bushings well and you'll see it's a tight fit but moves with very little friction when clean. In pretty much all drives the sled can be cleaned while still attached to the stepper motor, so no need to recalibrate anything afterwards.

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