Looking for advice on K&T 3H vertical head not moving

I'm hoping somebody is able an willing to help me troubleshoot my K&T 3H vertical head. The hand wheel clutch for the vertical head was missing when I bought the mill, so I made a new one based off the hand wheel clutch for the table. My guess is that a previous user broke the old clutch trying to lower the head as it appears to be bound up. I know that the mill sat for a long time (at least 3 years) without running, so I'm not sure if it's as simple as the ways being rusted, or if there is something else I should be looking at.

The head has oil and is pumping based on the level and flow from the sight glass, and the head locking lever and locking nuts are not engaged. There is no resistance when lowering the head's power feed handle, although the stop mechanism does retract into the housing. I even tried loosening the gib bolts while trying to operate the handle, but it made no difference. I attached a video below of the mill running showing the issue. I'm new to these machines, but I was a mechanic in the Navy for 6 years so I'm comfortable digging into large equipment if required. I appreciate any help that anyone is will to give. Thanks!

Suggestion

Get a wood block, put it on table, run knee up until block contacts end of spindle

Now - take off retainer bars - one at a time and see if some previous owner pinned head in place

Would be an easy git-er-done work around for trashed rack and pinion (or other feed works) - so the machine could still be used

Thank you for the advice, I really appreciate it! I'm going to try to get to this tonight.

I finally had (made) time to check out the issue again this last week. I wasn't able to take the retaining bars off because the nuts for the retaining bars hit the head before they could be backed off the studs. Also, the center retaining nut on the right side of the head was behind the hand wheel assembly, so I couldn't get to it with any of my tools.

I ended up taking off the hand wheel assembly to try and isolate where the jam up might be, and found a broken spring for the pawl that locks the vertical head travel lever in position. I don't think this was related to the head not moving, but i was able to replace it and now the detent for the travel lever works correctly.



I loosened up the retaining bar on the right side since I had access to the middle nut now, and didn't see anywhere that someone may have pinned the head. Everything in the hand wheel assembly looked like it was working correctly, so I put it all back together and started up the mill. I set the travel rate to 1/2 ipm and tried raising the head, and the clutch popped. I then tried the lever in the down direction, and the head started to move! I think that the head was just glued to the ways with old lube and it finally just broke free.

Now that I can move the head, I want to try adjusting the gib to see if that will help with the the tram issue I'm having. When using a 2" fly cutter, the cut is balanced in the Y axis but is about 0.001" lower on the right than the left of the cut in the x axis. With the huge ways on the machines, I'm surprised they would allow that much tilt without extreme wear.

Glad you got it to move. The high speed head for my 2K was so badly locked up that nothing would even budge when I bought it. I completely disassembled it, and gave it a thorough cleaning. It was an oil lubricated head that was filled with cement-dried grease. Probably been that way for 50 years by the looks of things inside. It now works perfectly and accurately. You may want to do the same to yours at some point. No telling what some previous jackwagon did to your mill.

Good luck with it.

Thanks, that's good advice. I'd like to do that in a couple of years when I have the time to repaint it as well.