Well...no joy no matter what. I ran the spindle down and there's no slot. I tried unscrewing the two collars above the chuck, after tapping the chuck back up. Nope. I locked the spindle and the shaft still moved down. As you can see from the pictures, someone has tried before, with a big hammer.
View attachment 244096 So now, seeing as the shaft wants to come down can it be tapped all the way out and then try to persuade the darn thing to release. I've heard of applying heat, then Kroll or some such stuff, and then freeze.
The manual's explanation doesn't seem to do it.
Oh, about additional numbers, you can see in the photo 6A 33T.