I’ve never seen it mentioned anywhere, but I’ve got a quick, temporary solution that’ll get you typing in just a few minutes. (Incidentally squished, old rubber bushings is the number one issue with vintage Olympia SM3s, and if you’ve not come across it, I’ve written out the details for a permanent repair/replacement solution.)
One can remove the two front smashed bushings near the space bar on either side and pair/stack them up with the two smashed bushings in the rear. It may take a bit of removing some of the “proud” protrusions to smooth the bushing pairings, but it’ll work. In my case, I used an X-acto knife (though a pair of scissors might also suffice) to slim down portions of the bushings that were sticking out. This also helped to keep the bushing combination from being too tall and not allowing me to get the shoulder bolt back into the machine.
The one issue you may encounter with this solution is potentially while typing with the shift lock engaged. This is because the front bushings help provide the proper clearance for the space bar while the shift lock is enabled. Typically one doesn’t type in all caps, so you might not notice this subtle issue at all.
Another possible solution depending on your particular machine is to swap the front bushings with the back ones as the rear ones typically carry more weight and are more squished than those in the front. Your mileage may vary based on your particular machine.
If nothing else, hopefully either the swap or the stack hack will help get you typing right away while you wait to pick up some replacement bushings from the local hardware store.
Good luck and happy typing.
Or. just remove them one by one and replace with 00 or ¼ inch rubber bushings available at any hardware store in the toilet repair section…
A voice of reason — thank you.
Very timely as I just got an SM3 and it’s sitting waiting for new bushings so the carriage stops hanging up 2/3 of the way across.
At least, I hope that’s it.
And, yes, the backs are much flatter than the fronts, so I’ll try that.
I just picked up a dusty, but mostly functional-seeming, Olympia SM3 and learned that I need to replace the rubber/plastic body washers/bushings to prevent the carriage from hanging up, stopping short of the margin, and/or hitting the body panels and scratching the paint job.
I probably could have swapped out the grey rubber washers, from the other side of the fitting, but I was patient and just successfully installed new 00 Flat Washers 1/2″ O.D. DANCO 88569.