Kat- It feels really nice to type on.  Something strange though...  with the original ribbon it typed fine (though very faint).  With a new ribbon, on black setting, it cuts off the top of the uppercase letters. I wound the new ribbon onto the old spools and it is a little better, but still sometimes cuts the tops off. It almost seems as if the ribbon is not quite wide enough.  Did Adlers have a special ribbon width?  I haven't googled extensively to dig into this.

Well, I put the old ribbon back in, and it worked okay.  Then I wound the new ribbon on the old spools, but it doesn't seem like it quite fills the width of the spool up, if that makes sense.  Which is why I was wondering if the old ribbon was a bit wider.  It must be something with how the ribbon is traveling.  Maybe the old ribbon slid better because it was dryer, but the inkier new ribbon is dragging or something, and I need to adjust the vibrator.  I'll investigate it tomorrow.  Thanks for the info.

Finally, here is the picture! Some screws that I unscrewed and put back in the mechanism must have settled last night and became loose, because the wheel is getting stuck now. It is the simplest typewriter I have ever seen. Really.

Very interesting machine TWG.  I'd love to see a video of it in action.

Cool, I look forward to it.

As for the Adler, Uwe was right, of course.  As is usually the case with ribbon issues, it was threaded incorrectly.  Duh.