I have also encountered many drives in which the grease inside the hub spindle and/or hub clamp bearings had dried out. When I am cleaning up a new-to-me old floppy drives, I check all of the ball bearings in the spindle and hub clamp to make sure that they spin freely. If they drag noticeably, then I take them out and work some very light oil into them. So far, I have been able to get all of them spinning freely without needing to replace any of them.
-- Mark J. Blair, NF6X <[email protected]> http://www.nf6x.net/
