6900 Series Clutch

[Keith Foor]

SO the backstory on this is I bought a 6913 lathe off a guy north of me for $800. At the time of purchase the clutch didn't disengage. I found a bolt had jammed it's self between the reeves drive pulley and the output pulley that runs the spindle so the lathe would at least run. So I got a box of parts with the lather that consisted of the steady rest and a full set of parts for the reeves drive. Now I am here to tell you that the clutch on these is a convoluted mess. The use rocker bars to engage the clutch and figuring all that out was a task. I was leary about it coming with a full set of drive parts and with good reason. But I finally figured out that a snap ring that the rocker arms sit down on was broken and gone. So I had a spare, installed it and felt like a genius for fixing the lathe.

The manual shows and explains NOTHING of this clutch system. But if you come to have one of these 6900 series lathes and the clutch doesn't work. A simple snap ring may well be your issue.