New Member Here...Need Help With E Lower Assembly!

[Steve Harms]

Hello everyone, name is Steve, I've been playing pedal steel for a couple years now and have been having some issues with my E lower assembly. (Left knee moving right) I've attached some pictures of what the setup looks like. From what I understand the guitar is a parts build from sometime in the 70's. I had a local player help me install this knee lever assembly but we were unable to find some of the actual parts we needed. As you can see we bent one of the rods in order to connect everything but there is quite a bit of slop in the system which requires me to move the lever over about 5 inches before the E's will fully lower to the desired pitch. Any further attempts to tighten up the system result in the open e string tuning being affected. Does anyone know where I could find parts to finish this up?
Thanks in advance for any help/insight!
-Steve Harms

[John Hyland]

What do you mean by having to move the lever 5 inches? I don’t see how that is possible unless there is no lever stop screw. Anyway as you say there lot of slack before the pitch starts to change it could be the rod might be too long. Or the nylon hex nut at the changer end is way out of adjustment. Check the changer end and see if the rod has too much slack there.

[Ian Worley]

I believe the part you're wanting to upgrade is the reverser, which looks pretty funky and unorthodox. The undercarriage parts are mix and match, the lever in your pics is Emmons PP style, the cross shaft and bell cranks are Sho-Bud style, but aftermarket parts, not originals. You really need something more like a Sho-Bud style reverser, that Emmons lever is not compatible. For that style reverser to work efficiently, the lever needs to be mounted on a shaft also, with an opposing crank connected to the existing crank with a link. Easy to set up if you can acquire the correct parts. psgparts.com should have most of the parts you'd need. It will still require a bit of finagling. There are lots of other ways to reverse a lever's action but that's probably the simplest in your case.

[Steve Harms]

Thanks for the replies, there is a lever stop screw but I've had to back it out pretty much all the way in order to get enough throw for the pitch to change the desired half step if that makes sense. I'll keep an eye on psgparts.com...I've checked a few times and the parts are listed but they've always been out of stock.
Thanks again!
-Steve

[Bobby D. Jones]

The knee lever looks to be for another make of guitar, Sho-Bud levers of that era were on a cross shaft.
If you cannot find the parts, You may have to go to a Single tree reverser mounted to the body of the guitar. Like some early Sho-Bud had.
You may want to post in the Forum "Want To Buy". For the parts. Someone may have the parts in their stash of parts.
They will be willing to sell.
Good Luck in this project, Happy Steelin.