Lever not laying flush with barrel (barrel not warped)

[EMQG]

https://i.imgur.com/vKGMkfm.jpg



So I'm restoring an old lever filler, and the lever doesn't lay flat. Not sure why. It's got nothing to do with the pressure bar. The problem exists with the pressure bar in or out (it's not a J bar, by the way. It's a flat bar that slips onto the lever and is secured in the back of the barrel via retainer).



The lever WILL go down without much resistance if you push it, but springs right back up to the position shown in this picture.



Any ideas?

Edit: Okay, so I solved this one. Tl;dr - I cut the snap ring to put less pressure on the lever, and now it'll lay flat.

Full story: So I tried what was suggested by people here, which was to put a larger sac in it. I had a size 19 in it, and tried jamming a 22 in. Still didn't work. Just to see what'd happen, I tried putting a size 18 inside a 22 (perfect fit, by the way) to see if a super thick walled sac would hold it up. It didn't. A Bic Stic barrel, however, did.

I've been trying to get this lever to lay down for weeks, so I honestly tried to think of ways I could get ink into a Bic Stic barrel without pulling the friction fit section (if it were a screw section, I honestly might have just rigged the Bic Stic barrel up to part of a sac and attached it to the sac nipple, and just removed it every time I needed to refill it). Couldn't come up with anything, because I couldn't think of a reliable way to plug a hole in it, and I don't have the equipment nor the desire to turn the end of the barrel into a blind cap.

So anyway, I tried putting the section in without the lever or the pressure bar inserted. Then, just fooling around, I wiggled the lever into its slot, and tried to get it to lay flat. And it did.

Now, that's nothing all that interesting, but it caused a revelation. The snap ring fits in the lever ABOVE the step down on the lever (I'll post pictures of what the lever looks like at the end of this post), and is therefore exerting pressure on the lever, keeping it from laying flat!!

So, some people I've talked to had suggested that maybe the snap ring has lost some of its springiness. Definitely not the case. I think the plastic shrunk very slightly which caused the ring to be a bit too big, and thus exert too much pressure when compressed inside the barrel.

Anyway, I knew that I couldn't bend the snap ring into an oblong to make it exert less upward pressure. Already tried it weeks ago, and it just reverts to its original circular shape as soon as it's forced inside. So, the only thing to do was to shorten it!

I just grabbed my wirecutters, snipped off a little bit of a spare ring (turns out a lot of old 2nd/3rd tier pens use the exact same levers and the same size rings. I got this one out of a Wearever Deluxe 100 with a broken barrel.) and shoved it into the barrel with the lever attached. It lays flat now! Stuck in the section with a freshly talced size 19 sac, and it works great!

Oh, also - this pressure bar design isn't great for use as a coin filler without some serious modification to the retainer. I tried it, and I woulda had to do some work to it that I'm not equipped to do. Turning lever fillers into blow fillers is similarly ineffective.

I'll upload pictures of exactly how the pressure bar, lever, and retainer are designed in this pen momentarily. I've gotta draw up the diagrams.

Thanks for all the help!

Edit again:

Roughly drawn diagrams here: http://imgur.com/a/OcIVD

[PaulS]

some plastics are known to shrink - might it be that the lever opening is a tad smaller than when it was new, thus preventing the lever from seating correctly? Something, some small remnant of the old sac perhaps, is trapped between the pressure bar and the inside wall of the pen?
Please let us know the brand - assuming this is a named pen.

[Farmboy]

Lever box?

[PaulS]

:-) I think Farmboy is tactfully pointing out that I may not be concentrating - he's suggesting that it does appear there may well be a lever box fitted to this pen - you can just see one side of the box. Assuming this is the case, then my first suggestion is wrong completely - although my second suggestion might be plausible.
Lever boxes can break at the point where the lever pin locates - this can cause poor seating of the lever ............ there are many broken boxes around, and many good levers looking for a home - perhaps the boxes break at the leverage point as a result of excessive pressure on the lever caused by resistance of the pressure bar against a vitrified sac or similar.
Since you have the section removed, then a good light source pointed down the barrel might help to confirm if there's anything internal that could be causing the problem.
Sometimes the lever pin can be deformed if a previous owner has been less that careful with his pen - forcing the lever up or down, if there's an obstruction, might distort the pin such that the lever is then unable to seat correctly. But, peering down the barrel might offer some suggestion.

[EMQG]

Lever box?

Like the lever boxes in old Watermans? http://www.richardspens.com/?page=ref/repair/leverbox.htm

https://vintagepens.com/images/perm/Waterman_52.jpg

No, it's held in place with a snap ring (as mentioned here> http://www.richardspens.com/?page=ref/repair/levers.htm ). The pressure bar is a channeled pressure bar, held in place with a retainer. A picture of the pressure bar is here > https://imgur.com/a/muWOx and the retainer is here https://imgur.com/a/jIC42 .

Sorry the retainer picture isn't very good, I didn't want to put more stress on it by pulling it out again unnecessarily. It attaches to the pressure bar via the hook you can see going down the middle of it, which is attached at the top (lever side) and open on the bottom. You slip the bottom of the hook through the hole in the lever bar. Because of this system, the pressure bar doesn't push on the lever, but just rests in the barrel. If you need a better picture, I can draw out how the retainer is shaped, or remove it again if necessary.


some plastics are known to shrink - might it be that the lever opening is a tad smaller than when it was new, thus preventing the lever from seating correctly? Something, some small remnant of the old sac perhaps, is trapped between the pressure bar and the inside wall of the pen?
Please let us know the brand - assuming this is a named pen.

It's a Good Service pen. A company owned by Lincoln, I believe. They exclusively made pens for Sears.

I don't think the plastic has shrunk much, since there's no warping, but it's possible. If so, what's my course of action? File a small bit of plastic away so that the lever fits? Wait until I find a lever that fits right?

And there's no sac remnants remaining inside, those have been cleaned out thoroughly. The only things inside the barrel are the snap ring, the lever, the retainer, and occasionally the pressure bar.


:-) I think Farmboy is tactfully pointing out that I may not be concentrating - he's suggesting that it does appear there may well be a lever box fitted to this pen - you can just see one side of the box. Assuming this is the case, then my first suggestion is wrong completely - although my second suggestion might be plausible.
Lever boxes can break at the point where the lever pin locates - this can cause poor seating of the lever ............ there are many broken boxes around, and many good levers looking for a home - perhaps the boxes break at the leverage point as a result of excessive pressure on the lever caused by resistance of the pressure bar against a vitrified sac or similar.
Since you have the section removed, then a good light source pointed down the barrel might help to confirm if there's anything internal that could be causing the problem.
Sometimes the lever pin can be deformed if a previous owner has been less that careful with his pen - forcing the lever up or down, if there's an obstruction, might distort the pin such that the lever is then unable to seat correctly. But, peering down the barrel might offer some suggestion.

As the lever is secured via snap ring, not pin, I don't think any of this applies, does it? I actually did try bending the snap ring a bit to lower the position of the lever, but it reforms to its original shape when it's put into the barrel.

[grainweevil]

Have you tried putting a correctly sized sac in it? Without it at the moment I can't quite see what's to stop the back end of the lever dropping down all the time, causing the tab end to spring up. But no doubt I'm missing something; it's not a design of pressure bar I've had the pleasure of encountering.

[Sagebrush64]

As grainweevil mentioned putting a sac in the barrel may be enough to push the pressure bar up to get that pesky lever to lay flat....good luck and be sure to let us know what finally works.
James

[EMQG]

some plastics are known to shrink - might it be that the lever opening is a tad smaller than when it was new, thus preventing the lever from seating correctly? Something, some small remnant of the old sac perhaps, is trapped between the pressure bar and the inside wall of the pen?
Please let us know the brand - assuming this is a named pen.


Lever box?


Have you tried putting a correctly sized sac in it? Without it at the moment I can't quite see what's to stop the back end of the lever dropping down all the time, causing the tab end to spring up. But no doubt I'm missing something; it's not a design of pressure bar I've had the pleasure of encountering.


As grainweevil mentioned putting a sac in the barrel may be enough to push the pressure bar up to get that pesky lever to lay flat....good luck and be sure to let us know what finally works.
James

Quoting everyone just to notify you - I solved the issue, you can read what I did in the original post! Thanks for helping!