Strange Mill

I finally started to tear into this mill yesterday, and made quite a bit of headway. I'm a bit befuddled by the motor setup though... it seems overly elaborate, with a lever that as best as I can tell applies/ removes pressure on the belt between the motor and a kind of secondary drive in the housing? I'm a bit out of my depth with this thing and was hoping you guys might have seen a setup like this before. Originally I planned on keeping everything the way it was, but now I'm thinking I'll probably swap this for a simple single phase motor.
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Variable speed unit. I'm guessing that gear set goes to a crank of some type to change the speed. If its in good shape run it. We run a similar type of set up at work, on PD pumps, to regulate pump speed. The units we have are typically very reliable.
 
Looks like a Reeves drive. Plenty popular, very simple.
 
So the adjustment gear controls speed?... forgive my ignorance, but how? Mechanically, the only thing it appears to do is move half of the first pulley in and out. It seems like it maybe puts tension on the belt?
 
The photo doesn't show the pulleys, but if the speed adjustment varies the PD of the input pulley by moving one side in or out, one side of the output pulley presumably move out or in, varying the ratio between the two pulleys.
 
Well I got everything up and running last night, and I'm thrilled with it. Wa5cab- that's exactly what the lever does... Changes the diameter of the pulleys at the same time. I couldn't "see" it working until it was running. The combo of varidrive/VFD is pretty fantastic... I was able to get my spindle speeds down to 18 rpm and still have plenty of power, and run it up to nuclear on the high end.
 
OK. Guessed right for once.:tranquility:
 
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