[Oldie Goldie]

Okay gents I went at this with a fresh eye this morning.
Cleaned everything all over again.
There is wear and slop somewhere that is just enough to keep this thing from holding itself together under spring tension. I think it only worked twenty years ago as the seller said because the original grease was so gummed up and hard it filled in wear points and held it together "enough".
Than it fell apart twenty years later when I disturbed it all by turning it.

Stupid stupid design. Reminds me almost of overly complicated highly machined German stuff that works beautiful when it's new and healthy, but the decades go by and wear and slop creeps in and it can't handle it.
A Lugar vs an AK-47.
The boys at RCA and Delco were probably laughing at Philco for this silly mechanism design, why they didn't just add another knob with a smaller toothed gear instead of this knob within a knob BS.

Philco.....We sell the sizzle not the steak!
Zenith.....The quality goes in before the name goes on!
Judge Smails.... You'll get nothing and like it!!!!!