Bridgeport head rebuild glitch

Could anyone who's successfully attacked a J head help with the following?

I'd like to service the exposed autofeed trip components on the front of the quill as they've collected a lot of gunk over the years and need the strip/clean/oil treatment. Fitted into the top bracket of the 6" tall depth-guage/micro-screw there are three small components that reverse the trip action - a downloaded parts list calls them 'reverse trip ball lever', 'reverse trip plunger' and 'reverse trip lever screw'. The outer 'lever screw' is missing on this head but the other two components are present.

My problem is I can't find any way to get the 'ball lever' out so that the rest of the trip feed mechanism can be stripped. The ball lever appears to project into a slot in the top of the depth-guage/micro-screw preventing that component's withdrawal until the ball lever is extracted. The ball lever seems free to move - it waggles about when the micro-screw is shifted up and down. I've tried pulling it out with small tweezers but it won't come out more than a few thou before resistance is met and the tweezers slip off. The lever can't be more than half an inch long but it seem to be catching securely on something. As the lever is hollow and looks like it could have a fine internal thread I was wondering whether it's supposed to be jacked out with a screw (If so what thread would it be?).

I don't want to damage anything by just using some kind of brute force (I'd also like to be able to re-use the lever). So is there a way to dismantle these components that I'm missing through lack of a manual? Or has the lever just become pocketed a bit and needs to be forcefully extracted? Any thoughts appreciated.

-Neil F.

Reply to
neil f
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Neil,

Screw one of the retaining screws from the quill linear scale into the hole in the end of the ball lever so that you can get a grip on it, and pull out the ball lever while wiggling the trip stop. You may find that at the bottom of the gadget the bronze rocker has been bent when it last failed to trip so that you cannot get enogh play to remove the ball lever. In this case remove the pivot screw and slide the bronze rocker downwards. They usually break where the pivot screw goes through and although they can be silver soldered I find they never quite end up right !

Andrew Mawson Bromley, Kent, UK

Reply to
Andrew Mawson

Thanks Andrew. That was more or less what I did (particularly the waggling bit). Luckily there doesn't seem to be any damage to other components like the bronze rocker. I presume the bit that's missing on my J-head (the outer screw) is just there to retain the ball lever and I can just shove in a shortened grubscrew or suchlike?

Reply to
neil f

Neil,

Yes, IIRC it is just a plug to stop the dumbell coming out

Andrew

Reply to
Andrew Mawson

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