Knee seized to column

I recently purchased a bit of a fixer upper. I don't need a functional machine but wanted one to tear down and rebuild. In this case the knee is stuck. The gib is wedged in there good and proper and the previouse owner snapped the gib trying to get it out. I don't know if it all happened at the same time or not but they also snapped the evevator nut off of the pedistol.

I'm going to fation a tool that will let me push the gib out using a hydrolic jack. My qustion is, should I take the table off of the knee? It's putting a lot of force on the knee and I think in my mind removing downward force will help when I try to pop the gib out.

Any thoughts?

Removing the table and saddle means better access to the top of the gib.
Leave the table on and moved to the right side offers leverage to rock the knee after applying light oil to the top of the gib and knee ways.
A flat strip of metal ~1/8 thick and leverage upward against the far end of the gib with a pry bar. There is not a lot of room to work
under the knee for a jack unless you have an alligator attachment.
If the knee can be traversed downward while an upward pressure is applied to the gib it will break free.
The gib adjusting screw is removed-snapped??
I have drilled and tapped into the top of a gib in order to use a slide hammer. The table and saddle were removed at that time.
John

Cool thanks. I read a few other really helpful threads on the subject too so going to take my time and disassemble the machine before going any further.

There was some good info on this thread, stuck-gib-jammed.

I went through this last year as well. The project never got finished because of family medical issues, but I did get the gib out.

I strongly recommend going through the link you have above several times as you work on it. There is quite a bit of valuable details there that do not appear relevant/important until you get a ways into the project.

I followed the advice there as far as laying the mill on its back and cutting an access hole in the bottom. Unfortunately for me, the gib was stuck enough that heating the knee and trying to punch it up from the bottom only mushroomed the gib and swaged it in tight. My final solution was to use a dremel to grind out the portion of the gib that was expanded, then continue to heat the knee while driving it down with a 10lb sledge. It would only move when the knee was above about 300F. Once the knee was pushed down a few inches, I as able to get at the top of the gib and break it loose.

The advice I got on the mill was to just scrap it and find a better one, but my intention is to finish cleaning it and putting it back together as best I can, then use it to make parts until I can afford another one. I recognize that it has taken too much abuse to be as good as it should be, but I expect it to be able to make better parts than I can make with hand tools, so that is good enough for me.

Here is the gib from mine once I finally got it out.