I was going to say this earlier on, but I didn’t want to get you discouraged until you had the whole works torn apart.
Yes, discouragement at the point of no return is definitely preferable to all other information-conveying choices.
In all seriousness: I've long been thinking that some kind of forbidden liaison between Millicent and Gravity took place in the past... I've just not been sure what, and when, and to what extent.
The bent handle is a sure sign of a tip-over and that would also account for the broken dowel pins.
I think you're 116% correct... it's just a question of exactly
what tipped over. Without seeing much else that's damaged in the same way, I almost think that the saddle was just
dropped... possibly by itself, or possibly with the table attached. I agree that the lock handle is a sure sign of that kind of incident: it's deformed in a cohesive way that indicates a singular impact, and the secondary strike marks probably happened later, since there was no real prohibition against damaging the handle any further. Same goes for the damaged handwheel in the same area; I think that took part of the same impact. Dowel pins would have certainly come apart from that kind of force...but I'm not sure that this is what caused the damage to the gears inside: I think that was a separate incident. On that note: things have happened...
Pictured: Assembly-shaped things, at that.
Those are the mangled stock gears, obviously...and now that they're set up with a modicum of care, they actually work really well; I'll still have to go back inside and change them, but the assembly is now
functional if not entirely intact. I think the discrepancies I've noted between my elevator screen assembly and the diagram in the manual is due to the diagram being representative of an earlier screw design. At some point, Burke changed to a larger-diameter screw - something like 1.3" or so - and this is the screw that I have; the previous one was smaller, and it may have needed the collar and taper pin that was noted in the diagram. Once I got the knee back off the ground and to where I could work on it, I made a few test-assemblies and discovered that the deformed retaining nut that held in the gear was just that: a deformed-thread nut...and Burke used one of these to set pressure on the gear. If you use a conventional nut and even
barely snug it down, the entire gear train jams and locks; part of me wonders if this is how Chimpo broke this portion of things, and whatever he did to the elevator screw shaft was a different episode. Regardless, I experimented a bit, and I was able to find a setting that allowed very little unwanted movement yet still allowed free rotation of the gears. I'm also not sure if the screw itself is stock or rebuilt, but now that things are installed and basically snugged-down, it's all working mostly as intended; I think there are a few slightly-too-loose and a few slightly-too-tight dimensions, but nothing that's exceptionally concerning to me at this point. After getting the screw and gears and shafts in place, it was just a matter of pulling everything upwards and dropping it back onto the base.
Pictured: I really like this little shop crane.
I'm definitely keeping this hoist... especially after swapping in that extra air-over cylinder that I had: it's literally push-button lifting and controlled descent, and my back LOVES not being involved with any of it. I'd like a better release valve on the cylinder, but I can fix that at some point in the future: either way, that part of the day was dead simple. Also, for reference, here's the reason I had to do the up-and-over movement in the first place:
Pictured: So close, but...
Pictured: ...missed it by *that* much.
So close...but yeah, not a big deal: drop it over, get the screw and nut into place, snug up the set screw in the base, set the gib into place, and then just snug up the gib screws.
Pictured: At least, snug up the ones that I have.
I'll figure out the misses and mismatches in the near future...right after I figure out how to set up gibs: all I get from the manual is "sufficient tightness" and "desired amount" and other phrases that sound like they were written by the allergic-to-specificity trolls at Land Rover. So, for now, I'm just kind of installing things per those directions and hoping that I'm not smurfing it up.
Pictured: Smurfing it up.
It's kind of a counterintuitive process, installing that thing; you have to pull the gib and shift things around and shim stuff kind of sideways and even then, the nut will BARELY fit. The dowel pins definitely change things up; there's one very narrow alignment window with them in place...but I didn't break them, so yay for me. I added some oil to the ways, slid the table around for a bit, got the screw installed, lubricated it, ran out of oil zerks, and called it for the night... but
holy f***, does this thing slide and move smoothly, now. Like, I thought it was fine, before: it wasn't. It wasn't fine
at all.