Originally Posted by
AzJon
Originally Posted by
Ray-VIgo
Before fiddling with removing the nib unit at all, check to see if the nib unit collar is the clear plastic type or the black type. The clear ones can be very brittle and require extra care. If the piston is moving smoothly and pulling up a full barrel of ink, I'd be inclined to continue a flushing regimen using a diluted ammonia/water mixture before trying to pull a nib unit that has one of those clear plastic collars. After flushing with the mixture, flush with plain water to get any residual ammonia/water mix out. If the piston needs a re-grease or the flushing fails, I'd only then move on to removing a nib unit with clear plastic collar. I keep a bag of replacement collars on hand for this purpose. I've had probably 60% of those clear plastic collars break or crack on me when trying to remove them. The black collars don't seem to have had as much trouble with this.
If I find one with the clear plastic, I remove it and thrown that trash away. Those collars are a matter of
if not
when they are going to crack and be an issue. I've used this collar for a number of old Pelikans and they work flawlessly:
https://www.custompenparts.co.uk/pel...connector.html
If you have the parts on hand and are comfortable doing that, then that's a perfectly good way to go. I have a little bag of those custompenparts collars on my work bench. They're pretty good. I'm hesitant to suggest to someone unfamiliar with Pelikan repair to try fooling with a clear plastic nib unit because what usually happens is it cracks or breaks while they're fiddling with it, they don't have a replacement part, and then they get mad about what happened. Worst case scenario, the collar not only breaks, but a chunk of it stays lodged in the threads. Then you have a newbie with a problem that is a delicate fix. But if you know your old Pelikans enough to have the spare collars and you're fine with replacement, then by all means - the replacement is the long-term solution.
The black collars seem to hold up much better and unscrewing the unit is usually OK then.
I really, really dislike those clear plastic collars.
Glad to hear this 140 is in a better working state now.
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