Brother MFC-8860DN not feeding paper, possible faulty gear?

Cubytus

Honorable
Nov 2, 2013
3
0
10,520
Hi there,

I have the faulty printer listed above. I removed the front cover of the tray to check for pressure plate movement. It has seen quite a lot of service with over 100,000 pages printed. To get rid of the "Replace drum" message, I ordered a new drum and reset the drum counter to allow for further testing without waiting for the replacement part to come (it's on its way).

In maintenance mode as well as normal mode (duplex copy), when trying to print, I can see the feed roller turning, but the pressure plate inside the tray doesn't lift, then it displays No Paper error message. Often, it also reports No Tray just after power up.

Checked:

Paper can move about 1mm lenghtwise in the tray. I checked for free movement of the plate inside the tray, and nothing is blocking it. It just appears the plate gear is not being rotated by the gear mechanism. By contrast, it has no problem picking up paper fed from the manual tray.

The service manual says on page 339 to check for the pickup solenoid and clutch gear. But it is unclear from the service manual where are these components. Attached are pictures of the gears.

Edit: after careful observation of the working gear and comparison with the service manual: P/P gear 22/B23 tray drive (Pink) only shows slight, irregular movement, doesn't rotate properly and doesn't appear to be transmitting any movement to gear 15 in the tray (Fig 3-12 p. 75 in the service manual).

These gears can't be accessed from the left pane. How do I gain access to these?
 
Solution
Update:
The P/P gear 22/B23 tray drive gear are part of the left frame, encased in a small recess protected by a small cover held with 2 screws. I had to dismantle the left frame (Item 5.1.89 in the service manual) to access them. The plastic axis holding the gear is a part of the left frame molding, and was broken. The gear didn't hold in place and rattled in its space, so couldn't transmit any movement to the paper tray.

I didn't take any pictures, unfortunately, but here's the description of the repair:

With the left frame laid horizontally so the main gears face upwards (don't drop them! It's a pain to put them back in place. Take pictures first if unsure), I removed the protecting plate on top of P/P gear 22/B23 tray drive (2...

Cubytus

Honorable
Nov 2, 2013
3
0
10,520
Update:
The P/P gear 22/B23 tray drive gear are part of the left frame, encased in a small recess protected by a small cover held with 2 screws. I had to dismantle the left frame (Item 5.1.89 in the service manual) to access them. The plastic axis holding the gear is a part of the left frame molding, and was broken. The gear didn't hold in place and rattled in its space, so couldn't transmit any movement to the paper tray.

I didn't take any pictures, unfortunately, but here's the description of the repair:

With the left frame laid horizontally so the main gears face upwards (don't drop them! It's a pain to put them back in place. Take pictures first if unsure), I removed the protecting plate on top of P/P gear 22/B23 tray drive (2 screws). The original axle broke off at its base, so I kept it and enlarged the hole so I could get a tiny tube.

Then I took a common nail, pushed it through the left frame hole (from the side of the main gears), and through the broken axle. It fit snugly enough. I then put a dab of epoxy glue on the nail's head so it wouldn't slide out.

Then I thoroughly greased the final gear with silicone grease, put a washer between the gear and the protecting plate, added some more grease on top of the washer, and put the protecting plate back in place with its 2 screws. Since this gear rotates very slowly during normal operation, I thought there wouldn't be much wear and tear from this "unorthodox" repair.

The result is the end gear P/P gear 22/B23 is firmly pressed against the orange gear (p. 75 in the service manual) thanks to the washer and protecting plate, friction is reduced to a minimum thanks to the grease, and the nail holds the gear straight.
 
Solution

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