13" Spindle bearing lubrication questions see pics

Hi,
I read somewhere in this forum it is a good idea to clean, inspect and re-felt before you begin using your lathe. That made sense to me. This early war 13" is in pretty good shape!
When I removed the spindle bearing caps (no brass) I saw these little spring clips in the v-groove on both sides of the small and large caps. I removed the old spring loaded felts out of the reservoir (still trying to get all the old oil out of the reservoirs).
Anyway, I noticed the thrust roller bearing in the small side wasn't lubricated to my satisfaction. Are these 4 clips for retaining felts? Does oil wick through via these little clips?
I couldn't find anything about them in my manuals and I want to understand it and put it back together correctly.
Thanks!

I’ve read posts saying these clips were designed to break up the oil surface tension and aid return flow back down to the reservoir below. I believe they were unique to the segmented cast iron bearing headstocks.

I’ve also read they aren’t really needed for good capillary oil flow.

If they’re in good shape, put them back in so another owner can puzzle over them fifty years from now.

That actually makes sense. On the other hand it makes the oil journal smaller and would tend to catch debris too.

Those journals look amazingly good. In or out, I wouldn't worry too much about those spring clips. When assembled, chips have close to no shot of getting in that oil catch groove to the outsides of journals, particularly if you get that chip guard ring on spindle tapped up close to main journal, after setting end thrust.

After setting end thrust, i think I used .0015 or .002" feeler gauges between journal and chip guard when I tapped onto spindle.

The oil cavity for spring loaded felts is larger than one might think. Took me a while clean all the muck out of mine. Unscrewed the gits oilers from headstock and kept fishing around with a thin screw driver, washing it out and such.

texasgunsmith said:

Those journals look amazingly good. In or out, I wouldn't worry too much about those spring clips. When assembled, chips have close to no shot of getting in that oil catch groove to the outsides of journals, particularly if you get that chip guard ring on spindle tapped up close to main journal, after setting end thrust.

After setting end thrust, i think I used .0015 or .002" feeler gauges between journal and chip guard when I tapped onto spindle.

The oil cavity for spring loaded felts is larger than one might think. Took me a while clean all the muck out of mine. Unscrewed the gits oilers from headstock and kept fishing around with a thin screw driver, washing it out and such.

Click to expand...

I was amazed at how clean and shiny all the bearing surfaces are. The only scoring I have found so far is the reverse lever gear pins, (they call them studs in the parts list) they also felts in each pin and a more thorough oiling/wick system in the later version.
Now I know to oil the twin gears.
Off to Harbor Freight this morning to buy a press, the reverse gear needs to be pressed off and back on. I am re-felting.
I just hi jacked my own thread.