Thanks Ken. The bull gear pin was stuck. I had been spraying it with PB blaster thinking it was stuck. After I read your post, I went out and levered it gently with a screwdriver and it popped right out. I was then able to engage the back gear and get the spindle to move.
It doesn't say it in the manual, but I'd imagine that actually comes in handy when you want to lock the spindle if you need to get off a stuck chuck?
I've got the motor out now and hooked up to the VFD in my workshop. Using what you told me about the drum switch I was able to hook it up as the forward neutral reverse controlling the VFD and motor. You were right, once I had everything in front of me it was a piece of cake. Thanks again! And go ahead and call me a dork for saying this but this VFD is pretty freakin cool.
I have a huge Delta abrasive metal chop saw I picked up on eBay ages ago. It's still in my mom's basement. It has a massive 3 phase motor. I had thought I'd get rid of the thing because it would be too much trouble to run. Now I'm thinking a VFD hooked up to it would be great, you could even slow it down enough to run it as a cold saw. Too bad I don't have any room for it. hmmm...
Anyway, the tool post slide and the compound slide are pretty buggered up. As I was aware the tool post slide is welded on both sides indicating it had been broken at some time. In addition to that, the compound slide has a pin inserted into the end of it limiting it's travel. As far as I can tell it's also limiting me from taking the whole thing apart. I can't imagine why someone would put the pin there. The slide end, where it is inserted, is pretty chewy. Do you think it would be ok to carefully cut this pin off with a cut off disk? Then file it down flush the way it should be?
Also I can't tell from the exploded diagram but is the compound screw supposed to be two pieces? It looks to me like it was also broken at some point. The acme screw was held onto the rest of the shaft with a flat head brass screw and nut that do not look original at all. Also where the shaft attaches to the acme screw looks like it was welded on.
Another thing I noticed is that the tail stock handle was broken, and re-welded as well. I'm starting to wonder how bad this thing is. I think the main thing is, the ways are in good shape and the spindles in great shape too. Everything else I can fix.
To answer your question, this thing is so nasty I think it's going to take a complete tear down just to get it clean, and if I have it completely apart I might as well do a full on restore. I'm actually surprised how much I've got done in just one day. Of course it's always much easier taking it apart than putting back together.
By the way, how much paint did it take to do your machine? Is the TSC light ford gray almost white? It looks that way in your photos. Did you use the catalyst hardener with that paint? Did you brush it on, spray or both?