Marco Sr...... Mine were intact not dried out or broken.... I do have one good extra one that I salvaged out of the 1938 knee action units, that I bought and had rebuilt... I think I will keep it as a spare..... you might want to use graphite embedded 1/4" rope
like Gene says... it will probably work just fine to keep dust out of there.... goggle it on ebay... that is where I got my graphite rope....