[GreenKeys] Model 33 ASR cleaning

[Seth Morabito]

I'm making some good progress cleaning the 33.

I'm a little more confident working inside of it now. I got over my fear by losing one of the springs from the line feed linkage and having the whole thing fall out while I was trying to understand how it worked. Don't worry, I found the spring and eventually figured out how to put the line feed linkage back in correctly! :)

I've gotten a little bolder since then, and I've removed the carriage assembly and the platen assembly entirely. I soaked the whole carriage in a bath of Simple Green and carefully cleaned it with a tooth brush. It did an amazing job of dislodging old grease. Bits of blackened gunk floated off, and years of caked-on dirt came loose. It really looks brand new now. The typewheel was literally black when I started - now it's bright and shiny.

I still have a lot more to do, though. Two quick questions:

1. What is the best way to protect the selector magnet during cleaning? It looks really, really hard to remove, so I guess I'll need to leave it in and clean around it.

2. Two leads from the motor share a Molex connector with leads that are directly soldered to the clutch trip magnet, so if I remove the motor it seems like I also need to remove the clutch trip magnet. It looks pretty easy to remove -- do you have any warnings about removing it?

So far I'm having fun. I'm learning a lot about how these things work. They are impressive machines!

-Seth