Engaging backgear

[AndrewP]

I have an ancient Perfecto lathe, Myford ML4 copy, and can't for the life of me engage backgear.
I have uploaded a few pictures here to avoid cluttering up the forum.
Loosening or removing any combination of the grubscrews shown doesn't make any difference and I can see no other mechanism for disconnecting the two gears on the spindle so that the backgear pair can function.

I am sure I have seen an instruction that one should use the grubscrews in the pulley and not remove the single grubscrew on the large gear (bullwheel?) but can't now find the link.
That single grubscrew doesn't appear to clear the V in the headstock casting so I have not removed it completely, it does come out around 3 full turns though.

Any pointers would be welcome since the minimum straight through speed of 175 is a bit much for some big stuff!

I have all the literature from lathes.co.uk, indeed there are pictures of my lathe on there, but it is of no help.

Cheers, Andy

[ettingtonliam]

Andy
The drill for an ML4 (my first lathe , 40 years ago, was to loosen the grub screw in the pulley, releasing it from the shaft. (Strictly, you don't have to take it out, but this is also the only way to oil the pulley so that the best thing to do is remove it, squirt oil down the hole, and then put the screw back in, loosely.) Then move the lever on the backgear eccentric shaft, so that the backgears engage with the gears on the main shaft. Clamp in place with the nut on top of the casting just behind the shaft. You do not remove the grub screw in the bull wheel. That needs to be tightly screwed home. Make sure the grub screw locates in the drilled recess in the shaft. It is only removed if you need to dismantle the spindle for any reason. I can only think of 2 reasons why you are having problems. First is that the pulley is seized on the shaft (does it rotate freely on the shaft when you loosed the grub screw? The grubscrew probably seats in a drilled recess, so may need to be loosened several truns to free it). Second reason is that the eccentric shaft isn't moving the gears into mesh , maybe the operating lever is slipping?
Hope this helps

Richard Wilson

[AndrewP]

Thank you Richard, exactly what I needed to know, unfortunately the pulley does seem to be seized to the shaft so I guess I've got a strip down coming!

Cheers, Andy