Typewriter Talk / Olympia SM8 spacing and carriage advance

**Posted by SamTheWriter83** 18-4-2018 09:39:46

My Olympia SM8 came in the mail today. Overall the keys work and carriage moves manually, but the space bar does not work at the middle of the carriage and the carriage does not advance in the same are when I strike a letter. I can manually move the carriage left and right with no problem, however. After this "dead zone" in the middle of the platen/carriage, the typewriter advances normally. Any help would be appreciated, thanks in advance.

**Posted by SamTheWriter83** 18-4-2018 13:34:01

Update: I checked the carriage belt and it is in good condition. It's slightly brown from age but otherwise looks intact.

**Posted by Fleetwing** 18-4-2018 16:07:00

Does the carriage slide smoothly back and forth when you use the carriage release? If not, then there's binding in the carriage; if yes, then there's probably a problem with the escapement mechanism. Others with more experience will weigh in, hopefully.

**Posted by SamTheWriter83** 18-4-2018 16:19:25

When I was trying to look at the belt and internals to see if there was any obvious jamming I noticed that the carriage advanced normally if I held it an angle, but flat on the desk the problem of the dead zone continued.

I didn't take anything apart because I would have no idea what I was doing, and don't want to ruin the typewriter even more.

I also started to notice that the capital letters do not align with the lowercase ones in a line of text.

**Posted by Fleetwing** 18-4-2018 18:39:53

The misalignment of the capitals and lower case is a separate issue. But again, try pressing down the carriage release and seeing if the carriage moves smoothly without binding, when flat on the desk.

**Posted by SamTheWriter83** 18-4-2018 19:22:34

Thank you for helping and being patient with me, my only other typewriter works flawlessly so I am new to dealing with these problems. The carriage runs smoothly when I press down on the release. It only jams up during typing, both the space bar and striking the keys will not advance the carriage.

**Posted by t24psy** 19-4-2018 12:32:37

hi

try taking off the rubber dampers of the bottom of the space bar if there are any if not put some on, I have seen home made dampers causing similar issues, the home position of the space bar can cause various issues and these dampers sometimes perish.

regards

t24psy

**Posted by SamTheWriter83** 19-4-2018 15:20:50

t24psy wrote:
hi

try taking off the rubber dampers of the bottom of the space bar if there are any if not put some on, I have seen home made dampers causing similar issues, the home position of the space bar can cause various issues and these dampers sometimes perish.

regards

t24psy

There are rubber buffers underneath the space bar that are intact.

**Posted by t24psy** 20-4-2018 09:56:55

Ok, but are they original, if not are they too thick, too thin, take them off and try space bar function without them, it's trial and error with faults like this. I am not saying this is your problem but you have to start some where, put the machine on its back with the base facing you and watch the space bar linkage and then do the same for the type bar move one by hand up to the platen and watch what happens has something dislodged in transit? its hard to say without having the machine in front of me, but the main thing with any machine is to keep things simple and not to go too deep.

regards

T24psy

**Posted by SamTheWriter83** 20-4-2018 10:17:50

I removed the rubber buffers and it doesn't really seem to help much. If I type a letter in the dead area and then lightly tap the side of the carriage, it will advance the one space. The carriage will move from side to side in all positions using the carriage release or return lever.