Zone-NPC-List-Level.xls shows the following for mines of malfunction newbie trash counts (attached png). There were 7 obsolete_model's up when the snapshot was taken in late 1999.
(I only included mobs lvl10 and below in the pic to keep it reasonable)
There were lots of clockwork scrubbers so I can't say for sure whether there should be one in the mines, though having one on the 'good gnomes' faction down there seems wrong.
As regards the quest faction requirement, this post from Nov 1999 says he got it with indifferent faction to the quest giver:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt....M/fHYuZA6kqVAJ