South Bend 10L Tailstock Problems

I struggled a bit with this on - obviously the mag base can't stick to the ram on its own, too heavy for the magnet :) So I took a drill chuck and put that into the tailstock and stuck the rod of the mag base into it. Long story short.

Test area: Tailstock back as far as it will go into an area where the frosting is still visible on the ways. Indicator was set as close to vertical as I could eyeball in the flat area between the tailstock vee way and the back saddle vee way. Wiped area clean with cloth before beginning. Initially had a slight problem with the indicator sliding sideways as I moved the ram in and out leading to continous changing values. I took a rubber mallet gave the end of the rod a slight (I do mean slight) rap to seat a little better, tightened up the chuck and the various "knuckles" on the mag base rods. Retried. Set indicator so that it had 220 thousands inset, zeroed it with the dial face, then ran the ram from all the way in (until I felt it starting to tighten up and pusht the chuck out) to all the way out until ram came offf screw. End result was less then half a thousandths in movement and it followed a straight path (as best as I could eyeball). Thus it would appear that the tailstock is most likely flat on the bottom and not tilted forward.
 
That's encouraging news. If, after your clean and rebuild, there is still a vertical alignment issue, a shim would probably be the simplest fix.
 
After my original reply I went back and tested as close to the headstock as I could get with the carriage in place and mid way back as well. In both cases the results were identical no movement on the dial indicator (ok. +- 0.0005 - 0.001) but mostly the change was if there was a bit of a ding or piece of dirt along the path of the indicator. Based on the wear (no visible ridge or wear detected by visual inspection) on the tailstock ways it seems that the tailstock may not have been used as much?? I'll probably do a lot more measuring and testing as I start rebuilding the lathe.

Is it okay to start a new thread here and post pictures over time as I do the strip down and rebuild? Or is there a more appropriate forum for that?
 
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