Well after about a hour or so of looking and trying to talk the screw bushing off I finally went into my tool room and came out with a small pipe wrench and crying,
as I did it locked the pipe wrench onto the bushing and started to pull. Oh, it hurt so bad because I could see it was putting some marks on the surface but kept on applying more pressure on the wrench until finally with one big heave ho it finally broke free. Once it broke free it came on out with little problem and once out, I couldn't really see why it would be so tight. There was no rust on it like I figured I would find and the surface was fairly shiny. I reamed out the hole with a small bristle brush and found there was a bunch of tiny pieces of chips and other debris in there. It's hard to believe that such a small amount of crud would cause the assembly to be so tight, but I reinserted the parts and it turned as free as a bird. The only thing I saw really saw wrong besides a good cleaning and oiling was something had gotten ahold of the big brass nut at some time in the past. The threads at one end were a little buggered up and there was a small crack starting on the flat side of the nut, it's kind of hard to see and probably would never be any problems but I know it's there and it bothers me, so I'll keep an eye out for a spare as it would be easy enough to change if needed.
Someone must have put a cheap Earl Shibe paint job on it at some time in its life because after taking a closer look I could see paint in places where none should be, and it would scrape off pretty easily with my fingernail, so I took a putty knife and went to work on a couple pieces and it took no time to get then paint free. I'm thinking I'll tape the shiny parts and put the smaller pieces in my glass bead machine and clean them up.
I got everything off except the head and the gearbox and I think I'll stop there for now and clean and paint everything else before I Tackel that part. what I have laying out now will keep me busy for a few days. I'll need to do quite a bit of thinking before I jump on taking the head and gearbox apart. the only real wear I see, other than a little on the lead screw and nut was a little wear on the main drive gear as noted in the pic. Also, I posted a better pic of that switch someone asked me about. The motor is a 1/4 hp Century motor and the switch is a CH.