Thanks.

Maybe one day I'll try again, but it does become like banging your head on the wall after awhile. As you know, the sprocket holes are bigger for Standard 8mm, which makes me wonder why in the first place Super 8 was the one running smoothly on my machine. You never know if a previous owner mucked around with it, though, but judging from the screws where I have to make the adjustment of the gate, that doesn't seem to be the case, as now the heads on my screws are getting stripped a bit, and I worry that at some point they will be impossible to remove. They are very small, much like the screws that are used in eyeglasses.

The good thing is you don't need to adjust the claw, as that would be a nightmare. It is the guides in the gate that are adjusted. Problem is, once you loosen the screws, it moves a lot, so you are back to square one rather than just being able to move it a smidgeon. And I've had the probelm with the film runs smoothly, but when projected on screen one side is cut off too much, and in some cases the image is lopsided. Another reason why it might be best to leave well enough alone and just use it as a Standard 8mm machine.

One thing I notice is that on all my machines, the inter-titles for Standard 8mm get clipped just a bit on the right side of the screen. And since all my standard 8mm films are from the silent era, this does become annoying.

Well, I can tell you about loosening screws you shouldn't touch. I made that mistake on my Eiki SL2 slot loader. I thought I was doing good during the lockdown by bringing all my projectors to the table to give each one a good clean and oil/grease. The Eiki was first, all went well until I decided to take off the scope lens bar, one screw came off, then as I undid the second one I suddenly realised it was connected to the film gate, I so the darn thing move and thought, s***. I did it back up quickly but the damage was done. Every film was unsteady, I spent hours trying top make little adjustments but to no avail, it ended up being sent away to be sorted, without proper tools and experience these things can be almost impossible. It's ok having all the service books, but if you dont have the proper experience and expertise your in the dog house.

Yes, those service manuals I've found on-line are not easy to follow. They show "exploded" diagrams of all the parts -- try figuring those out without cursing.
Worse is when you get a screw out -- then it disapperas onto the floor. I've spent hours trying to locate screws -- including moving furniture.

Now I take my projectors up from the basement to my family room with a carpeted floor, as far away from furniture as I can, to work on them. I usually find a dropped screw within a minute now. The downside is that my wife says now my hobby has invaded the family room!