The plot thickens.  I was able to find the adjustment screws for the upper and lower limits of carriage travel:


This is the left-hand set. The view is obscured, but you can just see a little red frame above the lower screw. Ergo, the carriage is not sitting on top of the screws in the lowercase position - something else is blocking its travel.

I was wrong about the uppercase letters typing where they are supposed too, and also about where the lowercase letters type in relation to them - since I thought they were correctly placed and rolled the carriage back to the position which WOULD make them correct before typing the lowercase.  Actually, this is how it looks:

I assume the bottom of the impressions is supposed to be above that scale, so the uppercase letters are also low. Now, the carriage DOES hit the upper limit screws while shifting. So I am guessing this part COULD be fixed by adjustment of the screws - limits are too high. The arc of lowercase i's represents pressing the carriage down by hand with varying pressure while typing. So there would seem to be adequate range of motion there, if the carriage COULD be allowed to fall on the lower adjustment screws, and its motion were not blocked by unknown parties.

Finally, I mention a red herring just for the sake of elimination. I was trying to see what was blocking the motion, and noticed the linkage here:

I noticed that the dark link has a strong bend in it, and the silver piece it is attached to was hitting the blue frame - or so I thought. Aha, I thought, if I straighten out that link the silver part will clear the frame!  

Fortunately, the dark link is a very strong piece of steel and I was unable to "fix" it much before I realized my error - the silver part is screwed onto the blue frame, not hitting it.  This is why there are professionals. This linkage cannot be moved by hand, by the way, and I am unable to find out what its function is.

So I am a little further along but not much. I know the problem is not the standard adjustment, but I don't know where the real problem is, or if the ribbon vibrator problem is part of the same problem. I am beginning to suspect that (1) the machine took a blow (2) somebody not much more knowledgeable than I tried to "adjust" it with his superior knowledge of typewriters and just deranged it further, and it was left for dead.

This may be my first trip to the typewriter repair shop. It's nice looking and just in want of a cleaning cosmetically, to my eye, and a very solid piece of work. But I guess I will have to have a pro evaluate it to find out if it is an easy repair or a hard repair.

 

TypewriterGuy wrote:

Are you POSITIVE something is blocking it? A lot of the time there is just grease and oil.

I had not thought of that. But the carriage is not frozen. It moves up and down freely but stops before hitting the stops. After that there is some springiness, and it can be pushed down to the correct lower position with a moderate force but springs back up. Could a blockage by grease and oil cause those symptoms?

Warning! Amateur brain storm approaching!

Of course if it's some other mechanism the carriage encounters at that point and the second mechanism is frozen, that could explain things. Something connected with the deranged ribbon vibrator? It occurred to me that the action of the vibrator must be linked with the carriage. It has to travel higher for a given setting when the carriage is raised. Right?

As for finding where that connects too, just move it with your fingers and see if a key is moving or a lever.

It is frozen and cannot be moved with the fingers. Another reason I thought it may have a problem. Could this linkage be responsible for the interaction of the carriage and the ribbon vibrator? I can't find any frozen keys or levers.
 

Oh, and if you ask me, that strong metal piece looks like a replacement part someone made at home with some metal wire.

Ive never worked with Olympias, so thats why I know nothing about them 

Where I live, theres tons of underwoods and royals and remingtons... No Olympias...

Aha! Aha! Aha, aha, aha!!! I found at least one root cause...


The bar the tab set key is connected to is badly mangled! Yippee! Frabulous day! 

Don't know what the heck I am so happy about - I found significant damage I probably cannot repair. 

It is so mangled it is apparently about 5 mm shorter than normal end-to-end. It's also rubbing against the key bar to either side - which was going to be the third item on the agenda to look at, that these keys were very stiff and did not succumb to solvent. But maybe there is only this one item behind all. The final clue, before I noticed the mangle - which is not nearly so obvious looking into the bottom of the typewriter as it looks here - was the extension screwed to the associated bar on the right, has a slot which rides on the silver cylinder. It is obviously in its pulled back position. Ergo, the bar is short, ergo... but how can a bar be shortened? By twisting the heck out of it, that's how!

Historical hypothesis: the key was sticking for some other reason in the past and could not be depressed, and in frustration the user slammed his fist on it! Probably the guy I bought it from, who seemed to have a short fuse. Is this what those straightening tools I sometimes see are for? Regardless, don't have one, and don't know if I want to attempt disassembling it to that extent. You can't luck out all the time.