One of the local machinist guys said they replaced the springs on a similar lathe & that cured the issue. he suggested this kind of clutch is a replacement for a shear pin. I don't really see one in the driveline that this power feed is on but these so-called manuals are a cruel joke.
Tonight.. a few steps forward & then backwards again. I inspected the springs. They both looked good, not mangled but were slightly different length. They aren't like super quality to begin with so who knows if this is exactly what they looked like new. I stretched them a smidge, maybe 0.030" & equalized lengths. I practiced sticking the balls in the clutch grove with grease to stay put & getting the clutch body aligned to them. That part is fiddly went ok.
But even on initial disassembly I could tell something was fishy about the cross hole drilled in the rod. You could see it was slightly off center, almost like it was hand drilled. They aren't machined & centered. And I could see a false attempt roll pin stamp just adjacent to the hole. Maybe unrelated, I'm not sure. I had this same cross hole issue on my power feed selector shaft, in fact those (metric) roll pins are still on the slow boat from China. After a few false tries & poking a rod through the hole I finally figured out there was only one possible orientation to re-assemble. In my prior assembly I just used slight tapping on the roll pin but by now it was looking in the false hole so I didn't want to risk it. I jerry rigged a 8-32 cap screw which fit the roll pin hole snug until I get another.
I rotated the shaft by hand again & this time couldn't feel any resistance, so figured maybe I just had the feed selector knob not quite in neutral before? After some adjustment to the ball set screws it seemed to behave itself. First I traversed & held resistance on the carriage wheel. It sounded a bit different under load but I normally don't listen for this anyway. Then I tried a 0.005" DOC pass, seem to go smooth, then detected some resistance at a certain point that altered the finish a bit. But this is where I was experiencing the original problem so figured maybe just irregular surface there. I tried another no-cut pass with firmer hand wheel resistance. This time it made a slight growl & kicked the change gear lever out. WTF!?
I'm rather bummed right now. Mostly I wanted to keep working on my engine project & not fiddle fart with lathe issues. But I think its PITA unscheduled maintenance time & I'm not sure where to start. Maybe new springs will heal it. The so-called manual doesn't spec length so I guess try & find the right coil & cut some sizes. But if it something more involved like bearings or bushings or bent shaft then... ugh... Don't even want to think about that right now.
