You just picked up a dusty, but somewhat functional Olympia SM3 and you know that you need to replace the rubber body bushings to prevent your carriage from hitting the body panels and scratching the paint job. The problem is that you’ve got a lovely new-to-you typewriter in front of you, and you don’t have the patience to not type on it until you’ve done this easy repair.
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.
Over the weekend I made a major push on beginning restoration of the Olympia SG1 standard typewriter I picked up this past month.
One of the small issues I encountered was finding four crushed rubber bushings between the exterior typewriter shell and the main chassis at the four corners on the bottom of the machine.
This black rubber bushing is so smashed you almost can’t see it above the silver screw head at the bottom of the typewriter frame. The typewriter’s foot has been removed from the vacant screw hole just to the left of the bushing screw to provide better visibility.
This is a common repair issue for the Olympia SM3 machines and one which can dramatically impair that typewriter’s functionality after several decades. I expected this would be a common enough problem, so I searched a few fora, YouTube, and some specialty Facebook Groups to see how others had done the replacement and find the specs for the original part. Sadly none were forthcoming. Has no one written this up before? Perhaps because the issue isn’t a huge problem from a functional perspective, no one has bothered?
But when you’re doing a thorough restoration on a machine you plan to put into daily use, you go the extra mile. To that end, I thought I’d write up a few notes for those who encounter this in the future, particularly as I couldn’t find quick sources on it the way one can for the SM3.
My crushed rubber husks (now more like a brittle, friable plastic) were approximately 16mmOD x 4mm ID x 2 mm, but I wanted to do better than guessing the appropriate replacement. Fortunately our friend Richard Polt has a downloadable .pdf copy of the Olympia Spare Parts Catalog and Price List for Standard Typewriters Model SG1 (Jan. 1, 1961 edition) from the Ames Supply Company on his website. Pulling it up very quickly provided a diagram of the appropriate part on page 12 and indicated it to be part number 34280-5x.6. Scrolling ahead to page 61, one discovers that the part is called a “spacing washer (rubber)” whose original specs are listed as 5⌀12⌀x4mm which originally listed for 11¢. On a German manufactured machine this is indicating a 5mm inner diameter, 12 mm outer diameter, and thickness of 4mm.
A quick spin over to the local Ace Hardware store and I was able to find a variety of Hillman rubber bushings on offer as potential replacements.
I selected Hillman part number 405784-E as the closest bushing with dimensions 1/4″ overall length; 3/16″ ID, 9/16″ major dia.; 3/8″ min. dia. and 1/8″ Hd. thickness. I picked up 4 of them for $0.95 each. Depending on availability, others might find luck ordering something of similar size and dimension from purveyors like McMaster-Carr or Grainger.
The old (left) and the new (right).
Back at home I inserted the smaller end into the hole of the frame and screwed the shoulder bolt and washer back in to hold the frame onto the typewriter chassis. It seemed an excellent fit and this part of the machine should be in good shape for the next few decades.
If this is the only repair you’re making to your machine, I suggest you replace each one, one-at-a-time in turn. This will prevent you from needing to take apart more of the machine or removing the entire body shell to get them on and will speed up the replacement process. If you’re doing it as a larger restoration, then just install them when you re-attach the body shell. For me, loosely attaching the two rear ones followed by the two at the front and then tightening/adjusting them all seemed to be the easier way to go.
If you’re restoring your own SG1, I hope these details make your work and research a bit quicker and easier.
