Ran SSM 1053 to stretch tilt/rotate tapes, making final adjustments

DECIDED TO HOOK THE 1053 TO AN 1130 TO CHECK IT OUT

I read some advice on Selectric repair forums that the metal bands that tilt and rotate the type ball tend to stretch a bit when first used under power, so I plugged the printer into the VCF 1130 instead of its own 1053. I used a quick hand entered program to type characters and commands, discovering that the tilt tape did stretch a bit from how it had been adjusted. 

NEEDED TO REALIGN THE TILT MECHANISM

The result was that the tilt position being selected is now one row off - a character in tilt 3 row would instead type the character at the same rotation but in tilt row 2.  This required a quick removal of the cover and a readjustment of the tilt alignment to restore the printer to correct selection. I also saw that the rotate positions, which I had carefully set during my earlier alignment, had gone amok. 

ROTATE ALIGNMENT - ARRGGGGGHHHH

I whipped through the rotate adjustments, up to the the last step which is to complete a fine adjustment of the rotation position just as the print cycle begins to activate the detent to hold the ball in place. This is seemingly easy, at least on paper, but was maddening today.

There is a rod that comes from the selection mechanism, pushed or pulled to the eleven positions of rotation. It attaches to the bottom of a lever on the left side of the machine that has the rotate tape pulley on its top. The rod is built with two threaded pieces and a turnbuckle that joins them. The screw threads are in opposite directions on the two pieces, thus the turnbuckle shortens or lengthens the rod.

I had the machine dialed in perfectly, selecting every rotation column correctly, good on both hemispheres. The last step is to adjust that rod so that the detent enters the typeball teeth at about halfway down the right slope if viewing the teeth from the back of the machine. You select a character and hand crank the machine halfway through a print cycle, so that the detent is engaged in the typeball. 

You then hold clockwise pressure on the typeball and withdraw the detent, to see where the detent meets the right slope. Adjusting the turnbuckle should move the point of contact right or left. The turnbuckle has two nuts holding it in place, one screwed against each side of the turnbuckle. Loosen the nuts, turn the turnbuckle, watch the detent position and tighten when correct.

In theory.

Each time I adjusted the turnbuckle to achieve a good positioning of the detent into the teeth, I would carefully tighten the nuts against the turnbuckle. When I check after this, the positioning is way off - the detent comes down right on the bottom of the tooth, in between two columns. 

I did this many times. I tried experiments with the order of tightening the nuts. I tried to anticipate the effect of the nuts on the rod. Failure after failure. The machine seems to return to the same bad positioning regardless of how I set the rod length with the turnbuckle, at least once I tighten the nuts ever so gently. 

The urge to superglue the turnbuckle in its correct place without the nuts tightened is a challenge hard to resist, because the next time the printer needs service or adjustment the turnbuckle will need to turn once again. 

RIBBON COLOR CABLE TENSION ADJUSTED

The printer supports dual color typing, with a cable that is tensioned by a pair of solenoids to select between two levels of pull, transferring that tension to a lever inside the carriage that controls the amount that the ribbon lifts during a print cycle - either to the red or the black stripe of the ribbon. Another easy adjustment.