it's a hose clamp that I put on to squeeze the crooked tail of the spring sticking up an eighth . . .
I didn't feel like rewinding it and knew that the clamp would be enough bearing on my spring end to keep it in and maybe to persuade it stay down as it adjusts itself in the housing.
I'll take the clamp off tomorrow to see if my spring end still sticks up a little.
What happened several months ago was I started to take my spring out of the housing BECAUSE looking close up at the outer coils against the cover, I saw what looked like the broken ends of a coil and decided it had to come out. So I start slowly removing the outer coil (I know all about the "correct" procedure from you folks here, so no need to run that again for my sake) and saw that somebody had overlapped and riveted a previously broken spring . . . and they did a good job !
So quickly I tried to stuff it back in and DID managed to get the spring back in to the case just fine . . . except that due to the rough edges of the overlap and the thickness of the repaired area, ,the hooked end stuck up a little above the slot -- not pulling on the slot like it should.
But I knew it wouldn't cause any excessive wear and tear so I just put a stainless band aid around it for now . . . till I have occasion to go back in. My drill return is fine and I didn't go back in for another half turn. Everything sliding smoothly.
From now on, I'll have compressed air gun on hand for occasional steel dust. jobs. It gets on the rails, gets down where the motor is.
And so ends the boring saga of The Return of the Spring
Before I take the hose clamp off, I'll fully extend it and do some drumming with a wee hammer on the housing. . . again.
