Thanks John,
I've now taken the tailstock apart and had a good look at it. There is no tang retainer, the ejection system uses the end of the leadscrew. Except it isn't long enough so it doesn't eject. Fortunately I can remedy that by tapping the end of the leadscrew and adding a bolt thus making it adjustable. The lathe was probably never originally designed to use a tailstock as it has a huge well made multistage turret and as such the tailstock is very basic. Doesn't have any adjustments at all for setting over or aligning.
With the ram out on the bench it's now looking like it is too small a diameter to bore it out to MT2. The ram is 0.9990" and it has a slot to stop it rotating effectively making it around 0.8000" of meat. I measured an MT2 arbour at the thick end at 0.700 ish and 0.640" around the center area of the taper. So it's a no go I would think.
However, the internal taper looks a tad damaged which would prob explain why my arbours rotate if given a little stick. Therefore would you mind if I brought the ram along with me for a quick clean up when I come over to yours? I'm hoping next weekend if that's OK?
One bonus, I had a look at the tailstock for the Union lathe. Remember that rusty thing I was playing with not too long that I still need to set up. Well it had an MT1 half dead center in it......can stop using the center punch as a center now.
