I buy a lot of clothes from local thrift stores, but every time I go I make sure to take a look through the electronics section 'cause sometimes you find stuff there. This time it finally worked out. 30 dollars got me this Olympia machine that looks to be in decent shape.
I've been wanting to grab a portable typebar electric for a bit now, and I figured I was probably going to end up with a Smith-Corona 6TE or similar, but this came along first. Of course, it didn't work when I got it (which I guess explains why it was at the thrift store); attempting to switch it on just got a very faint humming noise from the back of the machine and no typing.
Thankfully, I've played this kind of game before, and I figured that probably meant the motor was seized. Pulling the covers off revealed that, in fact, the motor was turning very slowly, and attempting to turn it by hand revealed that, in fact, the motor shaft was experiencing quite a lot of drag. I was able to spin the main shaft manually and confirm that all the functions of the typewriter seemed basically functional, though, so I felt confident that if I got the motor sorted out it would work.
That turned out to be a little difficult since I couldn't find a service manual, but it turns out Olympia did a darn good job putting this typewriter together. I figured out pretty quickly that a lot of stuff was going to have to come off the machine to get at the motor (not uncommon for electric typewriters, unfortunately). Thankfully, though, it turns out that while the carriage and this gearbox that drives the carriage return did have to come out, that took a total of six screws and disconnecting three linkages. Compare that to my IBM Executive where pulling the carriage is an all-day job...
Anyways, I didn't end up taking any pictures of that process, but once I had access to the motor I was able to take it apart, clean and re-oil the bearings, and I had a typewriter again.
But what typewriter do I have? Well, this one was made in 1978 according to the serial number, and it's a fairly high-end electric portable. In addition to power assist on all the functional keys except for margin release and half-space, we've got power CR (which isn't always there), key-set tabulator, and a dedicated line feed key (marked "vertical space"). It's also got five auto-repeat keys (marked in orange), a 44-key keyboard with 1/! and +/= keys, and an arrangement I've never seen anywhere else where the same lever does double duty as line spacing select and line finder; not really sure how I feel about that. Impression and touch controls are notable omissions.
Other than that, though, it's pretty much just a typewriter. This one does have the Courier-alike "Modern Pica" typeface, which is cool:
For some reason it's also the loudest typewriter I've ever used, which is a bit of a shame because I do find it pretty enjoyable to type on and I'd love to be able to do it more without ticking off my roommates. One thing I've already found is that it's a great machine for addressing envelopes!