Asher Black wrote:

So I think all issues boil down to a single thing. Nothing is dirty. Nothing needs oiled. Most of the time it isn't oiling it needs, it's de-oiling. Many machines have been over-oiled, because of an idea lots of people have that they somehow consume oil... All springs are there, and parts move freely. It's clean and pristine. Srsly, I can see plenty of dust in there... a bit of dust is enough to get in the works in the tiny, precise bits of the workings. But apparently you can take off the bottom plate. And what I found is:

I know: basic typewriter stuff: I don't know what you call all of this but: There's a pulley with a wire that advances the carriage, - this is the drawband - and there's a toothed wheel that catches a toothed bar, which corresponds to individual spaces/places on the typewriter. I'm not the most technical person on this forum but the toothed wheel is the daisy wheel on the escapement. When you type, hit the space bar, or backspace, it moves one of those spaces. The pull with wire pulls the carriage along, which has the fixed toothed bar, and it catch s in the toothed wheel. All good.

What's happening: in some cases, the pulley/carriage does not move that one space/place. It works great on all typing. Where it fails is on backspacing (sometimes) and on the beginning space on a margin on the carriage return. Sounds for one thing like your backspace mechanism isn't working. If you press it while looking from the underneath, can you trace the action along from the key to where it engages with the escapement? You can see the the pulley just doesn't advance all the way sometimes. There is a mainspring inside that round wheel, that runs the drawband But if your mainspring were having issues it wouldn't affect only the backspace and the left margin. Whether that's the wire, pulley, toothed wheel, toothed bar, or something else, I don't know. But it's not a left margin setting or anything to do w. the backspace linkage. Hard to believe it's not the backspace mechanism if this is consistent to this function and not happening with other functions... it really could be something as tiny as a bit of dust you can't see. I myself have had this. 

I've looked at every tooth on the wheel and every tooth on the bar, and they're all fine. Good! The wire isn't frayed - it looks fine. The pulley is tightly screwed down with a tiny screw. And nothing seems amiss. I don't know what this could be.

Okay, I have a couple of things to suggest. The left margin is still a mystery to me and I wonder if one of the heavyweights would like to suggest what causes that. But really, I find it hard even to believe that the machine, having not just been serviced after years of disuse, is so pristine that - even given this malfunction - it needs no cleaning whatsoever.

1. I really would - very delicately and gingerly - try cleaning out the escapement with some sort of solvent-based cleaner on a Q tip. Just gently, with lots of solvent. (I literally am just using white spirit these days, & it works fine, dissolves everything.) Clean the daisy wheel one tooth at a time, and all the little bits you can see moving, being v v careful to avoid springs. Do it till the Q tip comes away clean. I'd also just run a Q tip along the teeth of the bar (I don't know the name for that) - you'll be amazed how black it comes off.

2. The carriage rails. Carriage rails are always filthy. I'd give the rails it runs along, and the bits of it that run along those rails, and basically everything that comes in contact with any of that, a really thorough clean. Till the Q tip comes away clean. The drawband may be working fine, but it may also be having to work rather hard, if there is gunk causing physical resistance along the carriage's journey.

3. And then I'd make sure the segment is as clean as you can possibly get it. NO OIL in the segment - you might want a little on the carriage rails or in the escapement, but we are talking only drops, and only very, very light oil - sewing machine oil. But cleaning the segment, the slots, the type bars is just a wonderful thing to do for a typewriter anyway. I've had even faint type get darker after just cleaning the type bars, go figure. I know I sound like an old housewife, but aside from anything else, cleaning the machine thoroughly is a way of getting a really good close look at it to see what IS happening - and along the way, making the parts even cleaner can't possibly hurt...