Macher,
First, if engaging the half nuts moves the lead screw up or down, the lead screw is too low or too high. The right lead screw bearing height is adjustable. Move the carriage to a position near the bearing, loosen the two mounting screws, engage the half nuts (which should move the bearing up or down) and tighten the screws. Move the carriage to a position near the head stock and engage the half nuts. If the lead screw still tries to move up or down, I've never worked on any of the 12 pre-war models and don't know whether you can move the gear case (which determines the vertical position of the left end of the lead screw) up and down or not. Unless someone here already knows that you cannot, you could loosen all of the mounting screws and the quadrant (change gear bracket) clamp screw and try it. If there is not enough movement to cure the lead screw deflection, you will have to shim the carriage up. Attached to the bottom of the carriage are two bearing plates (front and rear). Between them and the bottom of the carriage should be a shim pack at each location. It appears (at least in the later models) that they were made in two thicknesses, 0.002" and 0.003". Note that shimming the carriage up also increases the engagement between the rack and the gear that meshes with it. So there is a limit to how much the carriage can be shimmed up. Note that if you do this (shimming up) and have a QCTP with holders with cutters in them that have been adjusted to the correct vertical position, you will have to readjust all of them.
The 101.07402 and earlier have a different carriage from the 101.07403 and later. Most (but not all) of the parts in the latter are 10F- parts, whereas the corresponding parts in the former are either 10D- or 9-. The part numbers for the shim packs (no indication as to how many shims in a pack and of what thickness) for the 101.07402 and earlier are 10D-159 and 10D-160. The part number for the early cross feed nut is 9-19, not 10F-19. The cross feed screw and everything associated with it except the Woodruff key and nuts are also different. Try Clausing with the earlier part numbers. If they don't have them anymore, they may still have the drawings. If they do have the drawings, they will most likely email you a PDF of them if asked.
Robert D.