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"Come on out to the drive-in and spend a night out with the stars"
ME!!

A small allen wrench will remove the end knob. Wipe the shaft clean of any oil, and use a cue tip to run through the hole of the pad roller itself. Use a little alcohol if necessary to clean.

When re-installing the knob, be sure to allow enough side play for the roller to move freely.

Pat

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Clean them first. IF they still don't work, try making some adjustments like resetting the closure stop or the lateral play. Sometimes they stop turning because they are jammed, or something.

As Pat said, keep the shafts and rollers clean and dry. When the rollers are removed, it would be a very good idea to clean the bores.

A little hot water and a mild cleaning solution, such as Simple Green or dish soap, and some cotton swabs will do a great job.

Make sure they are totally dry before re-installing them.

If it has steel pad rollers, order the plastic ones and throw the steel ones away.

Alright...I was sitting quitely reading this thread until that one came out!...

The best pad roller I have used is LaVezzi's SOR-422 roller and it is a metal one. It uses oilite bearing so lubrication is necessary. Sure, this means that maintenance is required periodically to clean down and relube but overall they are finely machined polished so as to not abraid the film itself. It is the only double flange roller I will use, metal or plastic.

As to pad roller shaft lubrication with Nylon rollers...The only lubricant should be for the shaft to keep it from rusting (different climates will have different needs). That is, the apply lubricant and then wipe off is the best approach. The pad roller doesn't need it, again this is a rust issue. I would NOT recommend using alchohol (anywhere in the booth) since most of the time people seem to get the rubbing variety, rather than the anhydrous-pure isopropal. Rubbing alcohol has water in it that will surely start rusting parts. It also isn't the best thing for the older painted parts.

There is my $.02

Steve

I don't think there are that many of the ones you described are in service yet. I would never use them, anyway.

I have seen metal ones used in Century projectors and sound heads wear to such a point where it has caused film damage. Likewise, I have seen the same occur in Simplex equipment using either steel or split steel rollers.

As a rule, no lubricant should be used with nylon pad rollers. The shafts will not rust unless the machine has been sitting idle for years in a humid climate.

I also suggested earlier to make sure the pad rollers are completely dry before re-installation.

Oilite bushings should never be oiled. The equipment manufacturers of some of the stuff I deal with will void the warrenty if they are lubricated. I have been in the precision mechanical field too long, (over 40 years now)and I have seen many failures attributed to the oiling of Oilite bushings.

I have also discovered the service requirements were a minimum of a hundred times less without oiling.

I do maintain alcohol in the booth to be used to wash a xenon bulb if it is suspected to be contaminated by a greasy finger print, or whatever. Just plain clean rubbing alcohol and distilled water works great.

So far, I never had a bulb blow up after it was cleaned with rubbing alcohol and distilled water, and I have been doing that over a period of 28 years.

Of course, I am an Obsolete Person and have always preferred nice metal pad rollers after having seen so many plastic ones froze up and running flat.

Assuming the little shaft the pad roller slides onto has not been damaged by neglect, what one does is pull off the plastic, discard, clean the shaft with a suitable solvent: 1,1,1-trichloroethane is best if you can get it, cleans beautifully and destroys all grease and gunk. Apply a drop of projector oil [not too much] install the new roller and adjust correctly. It will spin freely.

I was always extremely fussy about pad rollers. They need to be checked occasionally, cleaned and re-lubricated. Adjust carefully, 2 thicknesses of film between sprocket surface and roller.

All quite Elementary, my dear Watson. Just one of many little things competent Projectionists used to look after before their Craft was Wiped Out by automation.

On reflection it was nasty stuff and had to be used in a well-ventilated area & don't breathe the noxious fumes. Would remove every bit of body oil from one's fingers.

What would you suggest as the best equivalency to use today? New Energine, or something else? Old-fashioned gasoline works too in a pinch, but dangerous, the most I would carry loose is a small canful.

"Methyl Chloroform (also known as 1,1,1-trichloroethane): Used as a solvent, containing carbon, hydrogen and chlorine. Its atmospheric lifetime is 6.1 years. The Montreal Protocol caps production and consumption of methyl chloroform."

"The full name of this international treaty is the "Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer." This agreement was signed in Montreal, Canada, on September 16, 1987, entered into force on January 1, 1989, and subsequently amended in London (June 1990) and Copenhagen, Denmark (November 1992). It followed the signing of the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer in 1985."

Coca-Cola works great on car windshields, too. Since I live in the bounce pattern of our wonderful navy-issue A6-E aircraft that leak hydraulic fluid and jet fuel, sometimes a fine mist covers my windshields. Coke will clean that stuff right off. But, it'll also chew paint off the car if you don't follow up with a garden hose.

When I was a kid, I dumped about 6 bottles of coke in a bowl, and placed an old alarm clock in it. It chewed the mainspring in half in less than 12 hours.

Coke also works good to free rusted pistons in Harley-Davidson motorcycles....Dump a bottle of coke in each cylinder, wait 12 hours, and the pistons practically fall out.

Of course, I would never recommend coffee or coke to clean roller shafts..

For a substitute for Thrichloro, I found the non-flammable Brake-Kleen works very well, but it does attack some plastics quite violently, more so than thrichloroethane. It won't attack nylon pad rollers, but the fumes are still toxic. Use only in a well ventilated space.

John, thanks for the information you provided about thrichloroethane.

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Paul you had a good call about the WD-40. i had never used the stuff on the machines but The projectionist i had in my booth for years loved the stuff... why i have no idea. but that kinda explains why he isn't there any longer.