xpzzzz wrote:

Last drilling job was pushing a Forstner bit through plastic pipe to
make it a little bit bigger ID. I guess it got hot, the ram grew,

'Makes no sense. How would the ram get that hot from a chucked-up bit on
the end of an arbor?

I had a similar problem that got worse and worse on my ShopFox 14x40.

It turns out, they must've bored the ram bore in the cheeze-metal casting
before they did the other machining, or maybe before the casting aged
enough to stop changing shape. Hell, they might even have bored with a
dull tool, and gotten the work too hot.

But in any case, the bore wasn't straight, and the ram was. I carefully
reamed it about 1/2 a tenth, and it moves OK now, and tracks -- eh... OK.

I'll probably sleeve it at some point, if the walk in the tip (while
extended) becomes an annoyance.

LLoyd