Bull pin blues - opinions, help?

Hi folks.

I am loving my ex-school 260ATM and until recently, I believed that its scars from school abuse were limited to a banged-up tailstock quill and a couple damaged chuck adjustment screws...

...but now I think there's more. I've been cutting threads lately and want to move slowly, but I can't engage the back gears. When I withdraw the bullgear pin, the cone pulleys remain locked to the bull gear. There's a tiny bit of back-and-forth slop, but nothing I can do will free one from the other, despite the bullgear pin being withdrawn as far as I can get it.

Now, if pull the retaining spring out of the way and push the pin back in until it just begins to protrude into the gap the spring normally sits in, I can just see the face of the pin's end...and it appears to be fractured. So my questions to you:

1) Are broken bullgear pins something that happens? Is the nose of my bullgear pin stuck in my cone pulley, locking together the bullgear and pulleys?

2) If so...how do I fix it? Will I need to disassemble the whole spindle and then replace the pin with a new one?

Any tips and advice greatly appreciated!

Cheers,



Moz


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