I posted this over on the Yahoo portables group, but I thought I'd try here too.  My apologies if you've seen it twice.

Hi everyone. First I should introduce myself since I am new here. My name is Dave and I live in Los Angeles. I have a few typewriters and I seem to be drawn to early 60s European machines so far. Now the problems:

I picked up a Lettera 32 for cheap at a local thrift store. It had an issue where the capital letters were higher than the lower case ones. I found a blog post about adjusting the type alignment on a basket shift machine, and in the comments someone said the process is the same for a lettera, namely two screws for adjustment directly under the basket. Unfortunately I don't think that's the case. When I adjusted them it didn't fix the alignment, and now when I type, the carriage will randomly return on its own. Also, when I took the bottom cover off I found that the typewriter is filthy inside. There is gummy stuff on everything, covered by eraser crumbs. 

My question is the best way to proceed. I've seen differing opinions about soaking, and I'd like to know what you recommend as the best way to clean a machine. And then when I have it clean how do I go about fixing the carriage problem, and the original type alignment. 

Fortunately I look at this as a learning experience. Thanks for any help you can give me. 

Dave