6890N GC-MS maintenance advice

What model MS?  

Oxygen and heat are the enemies of column phase, inertness, and clean parts.  It is recommended that ALL zones, inlet, oven, transferline, ion source, and quadrupole, be turned down to a very low temperature, like 40°C, or off and wait long enough for them to cool before properly setting the instrument to vent following the instructions in the operating manuals.  When the software tells you that vent is complete, you can turn off the MS and the GC if you'd like, or you can set the inlet pressure to OFF or 0psi.

Once the system is vented you can remove the column, perform all the necessary maintenance, install the new column and other consumables, and pump it down. If you're taking the time to vent it, you might as well clean the ion source, install new filaments, clean the inlet, replace the gold seal and septum, vacuum out the fans, change the rough pump oil, all those things that need to be done on a regular basis.  There are documents in the Files area of this community to help with those tasks.

Thanks. The MSD is a 5973. 

I'll go an have a look for those files and read up and do the work tomorrow! 

the 5973N hardware manual is available at https: // www . agilent . com/cs/library/usermanuals/public/73nhw_030751.pdf    extra spaces added to avoid this reply needing authorization before posting a URL.    You can just google       site:agilent.com "5973 operating manual"      as well...

Lovely. Many thanks for your advice.