Hi Again! Nice link to pictures of dis-assembly for in-depth servicing, but you don't have to remove the bar to clean the bottom of the print head assy. Your method will work, but may take too much time and drives up the cost of repairs [labor hours], if the printer you are working on is not your own... REMEMBER that ink is water soluable and most ink will dissolve by using water [hot water even better]. I use flat coffee filters, cut into strips approx 3/4 to 1 inch wide [length depends on the brand of filters used, but usually ends up being 3 to 5 inches long]. With the print head assy unlocked, so that you can manually move it back and forth by hand, I will put the assy in the middle of the carriage assy. Using the paper thickness lever [lever with "+" on one end & "-" on the other end], I will put the lever on the "+" side. This rotates the print head assy further away from where the paper would pass while the print heads are moving back-n-forth during the printing cycle [for thicker paper such as photo quality]. I then boil a cup of distilled water in the microwave. You take around 5 to 7 strips of coffee filters, piled/stacked neatly on top of each other and dip them into the hot water [ be careful the waters very hot still. The strips will absorb the hot water like a sponge, but you need to squeeze the excess [hot!!] water out of the strips [back into the cup of water], or it will just drip/run all over and fill up the waste ink pads, or worse. You then place the hot/wet stack of filter strips on top of the black plastic plate that runs just under the print head assy, during the printing cycle. You then manually slide the print head assy over the stack of hot/wet filter strips: if you use too many strips, it will be hard to get the assy over the strips; if you don't use enough strips, then the following cleaning steps won't be as effective; be sure the lever is set on "+" so that you have extra room; leave the assy in approx the middle of the strips. Once the wet/hot strips are in place, set the lever back to the "-" position: now closes the assy tighter over the strips. Now manually slide the assy back-n-forth, from left to right, over the wet/hot strips and you will see much ink build-up [from the face of the print head assy's] + lint + dust + hair + etc, being cleaned off the print head assy and being deposited onto the strips. You will need to replace the stack of wet/hot strips many times, until little or no ink is being deposited onto the strips. This not only may help open a clogged nozzle, but is the easiest way to clean the print heads when streaking/smearing of black ink occurs during printing cycle: lint/hair/dust/etc, sticks to the wet/sticky ink and acts like a paint brush, smearing the fresh ink on the paper, when the print head assy moves back-n-forth over the paper with fresh ink on it, during the normal printing cycle. Once the bottom of the print head assy is relatively clean, run a new "Nozzle Test". If a nozzle is printing crooked [line is at an angle on the test page], or not firing/open, at least you will know its not because the bottom of the print heads are dirty. As ink is water soluable, you can now use a syringe to "Puddle" the "Cap Assy" and park the print head assy [over the puddled cap assy], to soak the nozzles longer and possibly dissolve additional dried ink inside the offending nozzle/nozzles... CAP ASSY: the felt pad thats under the print head assy, when its parked at its far right "Home Position"; when everything is working normally, the cap assy has a rainbow look to the top of it, from the 3 colors + black. PUDDLE: when you use a syringe to fill up the felt pad/cap assy with water; you keep applying water to the top of the pad until just before the last drops start to overflow: you may need to watch the pad and add more water, until the water does not soak into the pad anymore; once the cap assy is full, to the almost overflowing stage, you slide the print head assy over to the "Home Position", leaving the nozzles to soak in the water for 4 to 6 hours; this MAY dissolve any remaining ink clogged in/on a print head nozzle. Remenber that "Nozzles" are easily damaged and even if removed in Asimov's procedure, you have to take care while manually cleaning them: some cleaning fluids can damage the nozzles and even compressed air, if blown into the nozzle to try and blow out a CLOG, will probably damage the print head. This could result in all your hard work [cleaning procedures/dis-assembly/servicing] being for nothing, if the print head has to be replaced in the end [ which is not really economical]to do]...Good Luck! Denny Conway P.S. I usually recommend not using WD-40 as a lubricant on a carriage assy, as it is a good cleaner, but doesn't last as long as "3-IN-ONE-OIL", or even sewing machine type oil. Remember that water on a rag, or a damp "Q-TIP" will clean off ink build-up, or drops of ink. You can use water, or alcohol to clean a carriage bar with, but make sure to dry off the bar prior to applying any lubricant. Besure to clean off the outsides of the brass/copper looking bushings, where the carriage bar runs thru the print cartridge holder assy. Once you apply lubricant to the carriage bar, manually slide the print cartridge holder assy back-n-forth several times to lubricate and clean the insides of those brass/copper looking bushings. Keep wiping off thr bar until no more dirty, black looking stuff ids deposited onto the bar. You nay have to re-lube the bar several times during the cleaning process for those bushings/inserts. Once the bar starts to come out clean, besure you don't leave too much lube on the carriage bar, or dust/dirt/hair/etc will just stick to the bar again. This is what causes the black build-up that results in the grinding/ratcheting sounds. Once this build-up gets bad enough [noise occurs more and more] it usually results in the slamming of the print cartridge holder assy, to the left side/end of the printer. This noise and resulting slamming is actually the timing being thrown off. Once the timing gets off far enough, those anoying "Error Lights" usually come on. By that time, because the printers logic is so confused it does not know what is going on, or happening, so it just shuts down in an "Error Condition". Just resetting the printer [turning off & on] only lasts so long. THE PRINTER'S CARRIAGE ASSY NEEDS TO BE PROPERLY SERVICED... PLEASE DO NOT USE THE "MASTER RESET", IF YOU HAPPEN TO KNOW HOW TO USE IT. IT WILL NOT HELP THIS CONDITION AND IF YOU RUN THE "MASTER RESET", YOU HAVE TO INSTALL NEW INK CARTRIDGES, OR YOU WILL RUN OUT OF INK AND NOT KNOW IT [CLOG!!!]. THE "MASTER RESET" ALWAYS RESETS THE INK CARTRIDGE COUNTER TO ZERO AND IT ASSUMES NEW CARTRIDGES HAVE BEEN INSTALLED...
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