I don't see this as a massive project at all. I've learned that all of these old machines have issues and you don't know what you have until you take them apart and look. The fun is in figuring out what you have and determining the sweet spot for setting things as right as you can and then doing it. It won't be in like new condition but it'll be much better than it is today.
Yah well.. perhaps most of us over age 50 worked in an era when the machine-tool under our hands belonged to "the company".
Worse- during periods of history when FAR too many of those companies were living-off surplus left over from the huge build up for wars. War ONE as well as War Two, for some among us who are another quarter-century older, yet.
Worse-worse,? Most of those companies could not - or WOULD NOT - even permit us to improve our machines, even when we knew how and they didn't need much for at least modest improvement.
Now - I'm not saying "so YOU should SUFFER, too!"
Not at all. Bear with me..
Time having moved-on, Old Iron is now key to the very survival of small shops where hands now one and two generations younger have no other affordable option.
How did we manage to get on-spec parts out the door on schedule and on budget?
We, then - and I don't mean just grizzled old veterans - AND y'all younger lot NOW ...learnt to "compensate" for the shortcomings of any machine we touched.
"WE" being relative "newbies".
Walk in the door, age 18, already knowing how to get good work off bad machines. Not just "superstars". Every man jack who was punching the clock HAD to be able to deliver that, or was out the door, first 30 days, probation.
End of the day, being able to get a job done with what you HAVE, not what you WISH you had is far the more useful skill than being able to make the machine less imperfect.
Because it is not limited to machining.
It is every bit as valuable every step of the way, Machinist, USWA on hourly wage to head of a corporation.
Learn rebuilding skills? Do so if you can. Those can make you proud.
But along the way?
Learn to "run what you got and whine ye not".
That can make you safer in parlous times, if not also happier, wealthier, and wiser, all the time.
In all things. Blanket-sharing included.
Bedrooms are the LAST place scraping anything flat and flaking it for oil-retention is wanted, whether blued, screwed, or simply tattoo'ed!