Sony MFD-75W repair - hitting a wall

[Vom513]

Hello all,

I have cleaned this drive, recapped it, and replaced the internal eject gear (MacEffects). Lubricated as well.

However I still have two problems that make the drive unusable (well one of them does...)

• It always says it's not a Mac disk and offers to format. Formatting eventually errors out.
• The eject mechanism "works" - but it doesn't sound normal (very clickety clacky - gear slippage ?)

I have another of these drives that I did the same restoration steps on and it now works perfectly.

On this problem drive, one difference is it has the OMROM eject that does NOT have the lobed cam + switch. It's all internal. The drive that works has the little egg shaped cam and switch.

Working drive has:

Problem drive has:

I have tried adjusting the (track 0 ?) sensor by loosening the screw and adjusting forward / back. I have also loosened the two hex screws on the rear motor and adjusted it in both directions.

Other than just having bad luck and not hitting the sweet spot on either of these mechanical adjustments - is there anything else I can try ?

Thanks.

 

[ArjenCNX]

the mechanism needs to be pristinely clean and smooth, a manual eject should almost shoot the disk out, if you don't get that, there is still too much friction in the mechanism. next is the heads, clean them with alcohol, and make sure they can move freely on the rail, a bit of oil may help there after cleaning. i suspect the disk doesn't load all the way in, even if it loads 99% the frame needs to drop and touch the bottom plate, it needs to bottom out in the last step, its possible the disk is not loaded exactly right. what i usually do is remove the loading mechanism all together, clean the whole thing with alcohol or acetone if needed, re-lube it with sewing machine oil and then re-assemble. (be careful with those small springs that hold it all together) usually that does it for me, but not always.