I received my cone gears set along with the clutch gear set. The 24t gear is actually worse than mine. But now, I guess I have spares.
I had an “incident” last week while pressing the clutch gears out. I ended up cracking the clutch pinion gear because I didn’t remove the old hardened felt wick first. I was too forceful with the hydraulic press and displaced the key stock due to that hardened wick and yeah, once that key stock got in the way… crack! I ended up using a 1/8” square mill to mill out the center of the bunched up key stock. Once I got to the bottom, the remains of the key stock popped out of the clutch gear shaft. I cleaned up the shaft and replaced the 3/16” key stock cut to the proper length (1-3/4”).
I bought a entire used clutch gear assembly and installed the gears onto my existing shaft as the shaft that came with it was in worse shape than mine. I had to re-drill the detents on my original clutch shaft because the clutch pinion gear I bought didn’t line up with my shaft. I also had to reduce the diameter of the clutch pinion pin slightly in the middle so that the pinion would freely spin after installation. I contemplated re-drilling the hole for the pin but I needed just a little more room to allow the pinion to spin freely.
Oh man… I’ll say it again, the gearbox is the hardest part of the restore project for me. I find it difficult to remove/install the clutch shaft gear. I tried the 5/8” block trick per the Ilion book but the next time around (needed to remove everything a couple more times to drill new detents, fit this and that, etc.), I ended up just clamping the gear to the gearbox body using locking welding clamps. That, along with very carefully monitoring where everything is at when using the press, I was able to finally reinstall the clutch shaft /gears assembly.
Next week, I’ll install the cone gears / shaft, the lead screw, and I’ll start reassembly of the headstock.