# King 1236ml (grizzly G4003) Is Home



## HBilly1022 (Dec 5, 2016)

A few weeks ago my new lathe arrived at my dealers shop and I picked it up, brought it home and uncrated it. Then I left for holidays and finally got home and got it into it's new home.

Here it is sitting on the pallet and ready to be lifted onto the stand.



Here is the stand waiting for the important part.



All bolted together and ready to move into it's final location.



and at rest in it's final location.



A one man operation with the tractor but very slow going.


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## LucknowKen (Dec 5, 2016)

Congratulations. Very nice.


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## Kiwi Canuck (Dec 9, 2016)

Billy, I saw your other post about quality issues with the lathe, are you keeping it or are you still deciding what to do about it?

Did you check out the PM lathes from Quality Machine Tools? 

The PM1236 is about $4,600 CND delivered, as the $CND has improved about 3% in the last week, and the trend is looking positive, so if it's not too late maybe worth a look.

Good Luck,

David


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## HBilly1022 (Dec 10, 2016)

Kiwi Canuck said:


> Billy, I saw your other post about quality issues with the lathe, are you keeping it or are you still deciding what to do about it?
> 
> Did you check out the PM lathes from Quality Machine Tools?
> 
> ...



Still deciding. My other post is in an attempt to find either a PM1236 or the equivalent Craftex lathe so I can see if they are better quality. Busy Bee in Coquitlam doesn't have one on display and even if they did I know they would not let me open the cover to look inside. I talked to the guy there before when I was considering returning my King 1022 lathe and getting a Craftex. Not helpful at all. Then I read some posts about bad after sales experiences with that outlet and decided to stay clear.

The reason I stuck with King is because of the dealer. I had issues with the King 1022 and even after wrestling with it for 3 months he agreed to give me my money back. In the end I kept it. With the new lathe I am experiencing new quality issues and he again offered to take it back. I took the lathe back to his store and went through the issues with a new employee he has. He was a machinist for 40 years and could see my concerns. I also told him I was concerned that if I kept this machine and something went wrong I would have to pay for shipping it back and forth across the country to get warranty work done. There is no service center near me or in Kamloops where I bought the lathe. He talked to King Canada and then gave me the following options. 1) Get my money back, 2) use the money and see what other brand he could get me into, 3) use the machine for 6 months and if I'm not happy with it then he will give me a full refund, 4) during the first 6 months if there is a catastrophic failure he will replace it and deal with King, 5) after the 6 months and during the rest of the 2 year warranty period, if there are warranty issues I will return the machine to my dealer and he will act as my service center. King has also agreed to pick up the cost of shipping, to and from his store, to any service center they choose during that time frame.

With that offer I figured I couldn't go wrong with at least giving it try. Where else would I get that kind of commitment from a dealer. 

Since before buying my first lathe I scoured the internet for information on the lathes I was considering, King, Grizzly, PM and Craftex. I found very little (almost nothing) on King, very little on Craftex and quite a bit on Grizzly and lots of new stuff on PM on this forum and some older reviews. The Grizzly ones were mixed with most of it being good. Craftex I only found a few and those were horror stories about after sales lack of support and warranty fights. Lots of good comments about Matt at QMT but there were some bad reviews on the PM when it was Precision Mathews a few years ago. I think the reason QMT is getting good reviews is because of the after sales service. Don't know if their machines are any different but would like to see the inside of one of their Chinese machines so I can see for myself. I read their warranty and it states I would be responsible for shipping costs both ways if there was warranty work required. That would be ridiculously expensive from where I am.  So before I would buy one  I would want to make absolutely certain they are indeed better quality.

From my research I am certain that Grizzly and King are the same machines with very minor tweeks between them, with the Grizzly being a better version. King Canada  also confirmed their machines are the same as the Grizzly ones. I _believe_ the same is  true with the PM Chinese machines, with some of their machines looking identical to the Craftex brand and some looking like a Grizzly. Even parts diagrams are the same, except for little tweeks here and there.  So _if _that is true and these various brands can be grouped into 2 basic construction groups, then what we are really looking for is the better group and more importantly, a dealer that will stand behind his customers and try to keep them happy.

Just my take on this. I know you went for the Taiwan machine and I'm positive that will be a much better machine but I am not prepared to spend that much for a hobby machine that will get little practical use. It was a stretch trying to justify spending this much for a larger lathe than the 1022 I already have.

Well that's my story. To be continued.


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## Kiwi Canuck (Dec 10, 2016)

Sounds like you have an excellent dealer there in Kamloops, great that you get to test it for 6 months without risk.

I was pretty close to buying the King 1236 at KMS in Burnaby as it would have been something to play around with for a bit and learn on, but I know myself and don't have the patience to fix stuff just to make it work properly. 

Not suggesting that all King lathes are bad out of the box, but I could see a few items that didn't look and feel right, the Norton gearbox was very difficult to move the selectors, and the staff members I spoke with were almost useless so didn't instill any confidence. They also assured me it was of Taiwanese origin, which it's not as I later verified with King Canada directly.

Busy Bee just doesn't get it unfortunately, I'm sure they have a loyal group of followers but they are lukewarm with their customer service, maybe they prefer online sales as the experience in person is very poor.

What specifically is wrong with your lathe or is it just fit and finish issues?

The King 1236 at KMS did have petty nice smooth carriage and cross slides I must say, better than the Grizzlies I tested in Bellingham, but it was obvious that the fit and finish was average so I can only assume the same lack of attention to  detail is present everywhere else on the machine.

I'm kind of OK that the only real option for me was to go to QMT for my machines and have been impressed with my dealings with them so far.

Good luck with your "testing" and hope you find a machine to compare yours with. 

David


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## HBilly1022 (Dec 10, 2016)

What I find strange is that I have a lot of older King stuff in my hobby shop that was bought years ago and even though they are not the best quality (except for maybe the 6" jointer - I love that thing) I have not had any issues with any of them. The list includes; 17" drill press, 6" jointer, 14" vertical bandsaw, small wood lathe, 6" combo belt / disc sander, dual bag dust collector and probably some other stuff I can't think of right now. But all of the stuff I bought within the last year (10 x 22 metal lathe, PDM30 Mill drill and now the 1236ML) has had quality issues, some of them major. When I was chasing the motor issues with the PDM 30 I was in frequent contact with the King head office, I believe my contact was the customer service manager, and I told him the same thing. Maybe their supplier has changed his supplier. In any case, the quality has descended and they should do something about it.

The issues I have with the 1236 are numerous small ones that may become big ones over time. When I first uncrated it I checked for major flaws before starting to clean the shipping gunk off it. I turned the chuck by hand in every gear combo and quickly found that it would occasionally jam when it was in gear selector position "1". This was severe enough that I called the dealer and told him before I even bothered to put power to it. I was ready to return it. He suggested just going through the break in process and see if it would "work itself in". Before doing that, my curiosity got the best of me and I pulled the cover off the gear head and could see that there were 2 gears that were rubbing together if the gear selector was pushed all the way to the high side of "1". I could see that if the selector was moved a little to the left then those gears would not rub. There should be a detent or something to prevent this from happening but there is not. I also noted there was a lot of metal shavings in the gear head (and I have not even run this thing yet). So I took a magnet and went around the entire inside of the gear head to remove as much as possible before adding the oil. I then ran it through the break in procedure. Afterwards I opened the gear head again and there was more metal shavings in it. I started looking for other issues while I had the cover off and noted some minor ones and one that I thought could be major real fast. The lead / feed selector for the carriage drive direction has 2 positions; left for reverse carriage movement and right for normal. When it is moved to the left the mesh is fine, however when the lever is moved to the right the drive gears only mesh across about 1/3 of their width. In order to get the 2 gears to mesh across the full tooth width the selector has to be moved left of the full right position. Again there should be something like a detent to ensure the gears are fully meshed. The natural position is to have  the selector all the way to the right.

Here are some pics of what it looked like after the break in.

Metal filings after break in. Note that I removed as much metal filings as possible, with a magnet, before the break in run.



Pic of the rubbing on one side of the low gear. There are also some deeper score marks that don't show up in this pic.



This is the biggest concern. A gear that only partially meshes when the selector is where you would expect to put it. Note the position of the gear collar on the shaft vs the next pic.



This is where the gear should sit. The only way to select this is to do what I did. Pull the cover, find the right position and make marks on the gear selector then on the casing to align the 2 in this position. Note the gap between the gear collar and the shaft. There should be a spacer of some kind here to prevent this.



Then I discover the saddle / carriage lock for my lathe is missing. No way to lock the saddle to the ways. Showed the dealer and he couldn't believe it. While trying to figure out why my lathe doesn't have one and it is shown on the King website parts diagram, I discover that the lathe I just bought was made in Jan 2015, almost 2 years ago. My dealer didn't have one in stock and didn't want to get a display one from one of the other stores, since display ones are often missing parts or have been abused by customers, so he ordered one direct from the King head office. They ship me a 2 year old machine that doesn't have a saddle lock. There is more but I'm tired of typing and I'm slow at it.

Could you imagine the hell (and costs) I would be going through if I bought a machine from a dealer that wasn't concerned about after sales support or if I had to pay for shipping to a service center across the country or worse yet, out of the country.

I'm very glad I have 6 months to decide whether I want my money back or not. The sad thing is that I still want a lathe of this size and if I can't find a better quality one in this price range I may have to do without.

EDIT: I forgot to add that there are things I like about this lathe. It is very robust compared to the 1022  and as you noted the cross slide, compound and carriage movements are smooth. The 1022 couldn't part because it would chatter, vibrate and jam but this lathe is solid. The 3 jaw chuck also repeats well. There may be more positives (or negatives) but I haven't had time to find out yet.

I bought this lathe a few weeks ago and since then I have been out of country for 10 days and now my wife is in the hospital. Further evaluation will have to wait.


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## tq60 (Dec 10, 2016)

The lathe looks good but is a Trojan horse.

The gear alignment issues are what I could consider a major design flaw and instant show stopper period.

The machine needs to be user tolerant meaning as you indicated...levers should click into their positions and should not be allowed to go where they should not.

Our 1917 SB had simple interlocks as does the 1945 SB.

The gear shifters on our 1946 L&S have click stops where they should go and you can miss and the gears not engage but the handle is not locked in this position.

What we are saying is the issues you have pointed out are stupid simple design things that are ridiculous cheap to build so there is no excuse of any kind period.

Metal shavings on delivery is lack of clean assembly but cleaning them out then finding more indicates something is cutting something else so it simply is designed like crap.

Do not waste your dealers time and just have it picked up.

The factory should have shipped a fresh one...but...

They are not local so we are guessing they had one in a warehouse somewhere and had it shipped.

Maybe it was a warranty return maybe not but if the factory was sending a replacement as a warranty claim one may assume that they would cherry pick the best one in the batch to be sure they are done.

If they did....Holy smoke!

If you need to buy new then seek out a dealer who can open and show the inside as well as set it up.

Also consider used reconditioned something as you may be better off.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337Z using Tapatalk


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## Kiwi Canuck (Dec 10, 2016)

Billy, I'm pretty sure I can check a few things on the floor model at KMS in Burnaby, I'm in there at least once a week. 
What gear ratio(s) do you want me to check? if they let me open the top of the machine and anything else, and was it the lead screw fwd/rev that had the alignment issues?
Would be good to know if all machines are the same.

Regards to your wife and hope she is doing OK.

David


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## HBilly1022 (Dec 11, 2016)

David, my name is actually John. I just call myself Hillbilly since we left the City and moved into the country (hills) when I retired. 

On my way to the Vancouver airport 3 weeks ago I stopped at the Coquitlam KMS store and checked their display model. It was made in mid 2016 and had the same binding issue when selecting gear position "1" and having the lever all the way up. There are some other issues that make me think this is inherent with these machines. I read a post a while ago about an issue with the Grizzly G4003 and the guy posted a pic of the inboard side of the input shaft. You could clearly see that the inboard bearing at the end of the shaft was only partially supported in the casting. The casting was plenty deep enough but the shaft was a little short and as a result some of the bearing race was outside of the seat. My lathe has exactly the same issue.

You are right, it is the lead screw fwd/rev selector that has alignment issues. The only way to see it is to pull the cover off. I suspect that the Grizzlys have the same issue. 

Last night I tried parting with the lathe. That was a very positive experience. I used the power cross feed and it cut through the 1" piece of steel like butter. My little 1022 lathe can't do that because it is not rigid enough. There was another issue that arose though. When center drilling the end of the piece I noticed the center drill bit would dive as it entered the work. I pulled it back and checked to see that everything was seated properly and it was. I tried again but started the entry very slowly and that seemed to work ok until I pushed a little harder and then the bit snapped off. These are not chinese either. They are Norseman bits. I will try this a few more times to see if I can determine where the problem lies.

I firmly believe that all these machines have the same issues but would love to be proved wrong. That way all I have to do is find one that is built properly and I can stick with my dealer. Otherwise I need to find another brand that is better quality. If I can find another brand and am permitted to go over it thoroughly before buying it, that would drastically reduce the need for any warranty work or repairs. However there are no machines that I can find anywhere near me and I doubt a dealer will let me pull the cover off a new machine.

Got to go and plow the driveway then it's off to the hospital to see the wife.


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## tq60 (Dec 11, 2016)

Any dealer who is properly trained and provides service to their clients would pull any cover off for inspection in a heartbeat.

If they do not want you to look inside there is likely a good reason.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337Z using Tapatalk


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## HBilly1022 (Dec 17, 2016)

Well I've been playing (I mean working) with the new lathe and I must say this is a big improvement over my smaller lathe in many respects and I am discovering some new issues that I hope to resolve soon. 

The biggest improvements over the small lathe are parting and thread cutting. Parting is a piece of cake (watch this come back and bite me in the butt), no shaking, vibrating or other scary things. It just slices through the steel like it should. Thread cutting is now a  pleasure too. With my little lathe I would have to take very light cuts, like 0.001" or 0.002" when cutting deeper threads and sometimes it would still jam and the drive belts would slip. Plus the lowest speed on the small lathe was 150 rpm. The new lathe has a spindle speed of 60 rpm and easily takes 0.010" cuts even plunge cutting in the deeper threads, that I was having issues with before.

One of the latest issues is that the tail stock will slide away from the work piece. This happens quite often, especially when drilling. My small lathe never had this issue even with larger drill bits.  I cleaned the underside of the ways, underside of the TS and the hold down clamp to see if that would help and it did somewhat but the issue still occurs sometimes. I even tried cleaning the surface of the ways to give the TS a better grip on them but thought this was a bad idea since the TS needs to slide on the ways plus my small lathe ways always have a light coat of oil on them and it is not a problem on it. Hoping this will just work itself in. Time will tell. I still have around 5 months to figure it out.


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## Kiwi Canuck (Dec 17, 2016)

John, good to hear that you are using the machine and working out the kinks.

I read somewhere on this forum about another user who had to machine his tail stock clamp to make it hold as it was slipping like yours, not sure which lathe it was. I'll see if I can find that thread and post it.

On a different note, how are the Norton shifters working on your machine, do they move easily and click into there holes accurately.
The one in KMS seemed to be very hard to get them to slide without using 2 hands to hold them to get the small movement otherwise they would not move until they then went way to far, maybe something that you get used to with time.

Cheers,

David.


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## HBilly1022 (Dec 17, 2016)

David, I am trying to come up with some projects to make use of the lathe so I can determine if this is going to be a keeper or not. I really like the heft of the machine and that makes it so much more solid than the 1022. All the tasks I have performed so far are just much easier with this machine. I'm not saying this is a good machine, just that being bigger and more powerful makes it perform better. I really wish there were some other brands of lower end Chinese 12 x 36 lathes around that I could look at and check for similar issues. 

I checked the TS to see if it wasn't seating properly on the ways, just using a piece of paper to see if I could slide it out from under various parts of the TS and I couldn't, which suggests to me that it is making full contact on the surface of the ways. I tried looking at the clamping bar but it's too hard to see properly. There are a lot of imperfections on the underside of the ways, where the clamp rides and that may be contributing to the problem. I'll pull the clamp and see if it is straight where it clamps to the ways.

The Norton gears are quite hard to move, despite the copious amounts of oil I have put on them. Like you stated, it is easier to use 2 hands to adjust them. But they do seem to line up with the mating gears (that said without visually checking them). I think the shifters will get easier to move, with use. The main gear shifters are also difficult to move and mate with other gears. I think that is just the nature of a gear head lathe but given my inexperience with this kind of equipment, I could be totally wrong.

I'm still considering another brand like Craftex or PM but would need to have hands on one before making that decision, especially since any warranty / service issues could be costly. I'll be hard pressed to find a dealer like the one in Kamloops. I know Matt has a good rep on this site and has helped out other Canadians having issues with their lathes. I think they were Craftex. By all accounts on this forum Matt is a stand up dealer and I wish he was closer or had an outlet in BC or northern Washington. That way I could check the quality of his machines.  The dollar is a little higher now but even so a basic PM1236 would cost me about $900 more than the King1236. If they have the same issues it would be a waste of money but if they are better quality it may be worth it.

John


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## HBilly1022 (Dec 17, 2016)

Well I checked the clamping bar under the TS and found it's ways were not parallel. Not much out of alignment but I was hoping that was the cause of the TS sliding when clamped down. I put it in the mill, used a DI to set it up as close to level and parallel as possible, then milled the 2 ways at exactly the same setting. When done I was sure that would solve the problem, since the ways were a little rougher so they would grab better and would now grab on a bigger surface area. Wrong! It's still doing the same thing. Not sure what to check / do next.


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## Kiwi Canuck (Dec 17, 2016)

John, call Matt at PM on Monday and ask his opinion on the PM 1236 and see if he believes their machine is a better class of machine or if all Chinese 1236's are similar with regard to the issues you have discovered with your machine.

When I was researching my options Matt suggested the the PM 1236/PM 935TS instead of the PM 1340GT/PM 935TS if I needed to trim the budget so he must have faith in their PM 1236 as a quality machine.

There are quite a few PM 1236 owners on this forum, so maybe ask the question in the PM section and see what info comes back.

David

PS. Matt will give a discount for cash bank transfer/cheque, I used XE Money transfer and kept an eye on the rates and locked in once I was comfortable with the rate.
It went a slow as 1.31 last week. CC were still 1.36 or 1.37 so that makes a bit of difference and Matt may be able to give you additional discounts if you ask for a quote.

http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=CAD&view=1Y

David


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## HBilly1022 (Dec 18, 2016)

David, good idea about posting on the PM section to see if others have experienced any of these issues. Maybe someone is willing to take the cover off their gear head to see if their machine has similar issues or not. I may also post the same questions on the Grizzly forum.

I think most people get their new lathe and just use it until something breaks or it starts making strange noises and if that is true then the issues I have discovered would not be noticed, except for the sliding TS, until something goes wrong. Maybe these issues are common and don't present long term problems but I'm inclined to think they would. I think I have significantly reduced future failure problems in the gear head by marking the gear shift levers at the locations where the gears make the best contact. If others aren't doing this and their lathes have the same design flaws then maybe they aren't as bad as I think. Sure would be easy to fix at the factory though.


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## qualitymachinetools (Dec 18, 2016)

First as far as the gears locking up, there SHOULD (I sad Should, because its not our machine, so I do not know for sure) be detents on those levers, but if you just put the lever all the way to one side, that may happen. It may be an issue that you need to look at, or possibly just adjusting the detent springs or even just getting a feel for where they go. Same with the alignment on that other gear, but it all should be something you can fix and take care of easily.   The detents should be under the arrow pointer stickers on the face of the gear change levers, they are just a spring and a ball. Not saying they are all in the right position, I do not deal with that factory and never have, but they are all very similar. 

     There is not going to be a big difference between the PM-1236 and what you have. It Is a completely different factory, the machine you have is different, but similar. I have never worked with that factory, so I can not comment on the specifics.   There can (And many times IS) a good bit of difference in them, but, they are still both Chinese lathes. Remember what you paid for it, although its a good bit of money, for what all you are getting, think about what all is there for the money.
     My advice is, Keep the machine you have, put some time in to learning it and making the necessary adjustments/fixes etc, unless you go up to the machines that are from Taiwan, and that higher price level, there is not going to be any major difference between Chinese lathes.     Our service and support will be the best, but it sounds like the place you are dealing with has really good support too. If that is the most you want to spend, that is the best you are going to get, and it sounds like you have a good dealer that you are working with there, so I would stick with what you have. If you trade it in for another, its probably going to be exactly the same as what you have now.


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## qualitymachinetools (Dec 18, 2016)

And also, best wishes to your wife's health, that's much more important than messing around with a machine right now!


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## HBilly1022 (Dec 18, 2016)

WOW Matt. Your post speaks volumes about your character. I am truly impressed!!!! and on a Sunday too. Thank you for your honesty.

I know a similar sized machine that is made in North America would cost me somewhere between 3 and 5 times as much (even more if I wanted it too) and have accepted the fact that I am buying Chinese at a much lower cost and _quality_ and I'm good with that. I guess my real effort was to see if the other Chinese machines in this class are all the same or if the brands from a different factory are better quality. I am prepared to work through the issues with this lathe, as I did with my first one and after reading your post I will probably keep this lathe. I did with my first one and it had a lot of issues but my dealer helped me by letting me swap bad parts from mine for good ones. I did all the labor and a lot of traveling back and forth but at the end of the day I have a small lathe that works well enough. There are still some rigidity issues when parting but I know I can fix that by making a better hold down system for the compound. Probably won't bother now that I have the larger lathe.

I would still like to see your PM1236 just to compare, since your machines do come from a different factory.

I checked the King service manual on line and the Grizzly one too. They both show detents on the 2 main gear selectors but not on the one that selects the drive shaft rotational direction. I will pull mine apart to see why they are not engaging and fix that. Thanks for that information. I see on the parts diagram for your lathe there are detents shown for all three of these selectors. 

Thanks for the kind words about my wife. She had a partial stroke 2 weeks ago and her right side from just above her stomach to her toes was paralyzed. Doctors figured it was due to her unstable neck, that has been an issue for the last 6 years, and that 2 vertebrae shifted causing a blood vessel along her spine to get pinched and her spinal chord to be impacted. It took 5 days, 6 CT scans, 3 xrays and an MRI to figure it out. They operated last Tuesday and put plates on her spine, at her neck. She is now home using a walker to get around but isn't able to do much. I'm learning to appreciate all the things she does around the house, since those duties have fallen to me. The good news is that she is slowly gaining feeling and some mobility in her leg. This could be a long haul but all signs are good and we are heading in the right direction. There is a silver lining to this story too. As a result of the neck fusion, she will no longer suffer the agonizing pain in her neck from nerves being pinched and will no longer need to get rhizotomy's every year.


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## HBilly1022 (Dec 18, 2016)

Before getting dinner ready I sneaked out to the shop and checked for detents on the lathe. With the lathe off and no background sounds I could hear the detent balls push into position as I turned the selectors and there were detents on *all* of the selectors. I think the issue is that the selectors are very stiff and hard to turn plus the gears don't usually line up so it is necessary to use a fair amount of force to turn the selectors and I couldn't feel a detent engage as the selector moved past the proper location. Now that I know they are there, I can hear them push into place and if I move the selector close to the detent location I can actually feel it engage. I think the selectors will eventually loosen up and then the detents will be more obvious. The good news is that the detent locations coincide with the marks I made on the selectors and the housing. I may pull the gear head cover off to see if I can move the retaining clamps on the selector shafts to make them easier to turn.

I also think I may be getting closer to solving the TS sliding issue. I pulled the TS off and took a close look at the ways (if that is what they are called) on the clamping bars and I could see that they are only riding on a very narrow strip on the outside edges. I used a hand file to reshape them a couple of times so far and will see if I can get a larger contact area between the clamp and the underside of the bed ways. I used some layout die on the clamp ways the last time and after using the TS in a locked position and it moving, I could see that one side of the clamp was still riding on one edge but there were also individual marks more central in the clamp way, that suggested it was riding high on some of the bumps on the underside of the bed ways. When I get a chance I will keep at this until I get it figured out and will post the solution here. Now it's off to clean up the mess I made when making dinner and to do the dishes.


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