I've had the same issue in one of my drives. I've used one drive to fix three other drives.

1. Bad plastic gear that crumbled

2. bad heads that couldn't be cleaned

3. bad stepper motor.

4. I stretched a side spring on one of these drives by accident taking it apart to clean (used one spring)

I still have the rest of that drive for parts just in case. Now a days, I don't even try those drives when I get a vintage Mac. I just open them up and immediately clean the drive before even turning them on.

You may want to salvage one drive with the other as mentioned but if you need both, you probably need to buy one. At least you'll have other for parts.