Others are perhaps more experienced than I, but it sounds to me like the escapement mechanism is the issue, most likely caused by hardened grease and residue. I've had good experience with squirting a bit of naptha (Zippo lighter fluid) into the shaft of the escapement, followed by some light machine oil, then working the machine enough to loosen up the hardened grease and let the fresh oil penetrate.

The escapement is what permits the carriage to move one "space" between letters. But if the escapement gear itself doesn't freely turn on its shaft, it can turn slow enough such that by the time the next tooth engages, the carriage has already moved one space too far, hence the skipped spaces.

It is for problems like this that it's recommended to degrease, clean and relubricate the entire mechanism. I'm personally not setup, or experienced enough, to do a complete tear-down and clean, but I do address spot issues on specific areas of my machines.

Many repair shops would dip the entire chassis in a chemical bath, followed by hot oil,  to restore such machines. 

~Joe

Last edited by JoeV (15-5-2015 15:03:52)

The part with your finger on it looks like something to do with the escapment (But not sure), or could be something with margin release or the margins. The wheel thing I cant really make out, but looks to be something under the carriage, one of the wheels.

TypewriterGuy wrote:

The wheel thing I cant really make out, but looks to be something under the carriage, one of the wheels.

The "wheel thing" is the head of a broken screw, as troymck pointed out in his post.

@troymck: I would follow Joe's advice and try to clean the escapement as it does sound like it's sticking and causing the carriage to randomly skip forward an extra space. It's a fairly common issue with machines that need service. As for the part you found, which I don't immediately recognize, at least you know that you should be looking for a threaded section of screw with its head missing while you're poking around the machine's innards with a cotton swab trying to clean the escapement. Something else: if the part is of any significance, the fact that it's no longer in the machine would directly affect an aspect of its operation, so if you thoroughly test every feature and function of the typewriter it might quickly become apparent what area it came from.

EDIT: Looks like I was typing out my reply at the same time you were posting yours. Can you add a photo of where you think the part came from? At this point it would seem that you only need a new screw, which shouldn't be too difficult to source...

Last edited by Uwe (16-5-2015 11:20:24)