Troubleshooting the Lay bar on Windmill

You could cut some chipboard and use double sided tape and put it on the brass guides to give you more. Try and clean the lock nuts and assembly thoroughly. I don’t think I get 4 points on my lay bar. Once I get the lay bar straight, I just move my form.

You will find in the tool box if lucky a box wrench that a screwdriver passes through , you turn the wrench anti clock while turning screw driver clockways ,at the point you cant turn the screw or the box wrench you should be at minimum grip in the lay , now without using the box wrench turn the screw anti clockwise and count ,you should get two full 360degree turns and about a further10 mins , if you dont get that much movement remove the nut or undo it enough that it is nearly off and count again , the lay unit through which the screw passes has a spring that the lay movement is aided by rarely will one of these prove to be broken but if you wind fully down there should be no perceptable gap beneath the bar in its channel and the same when fullyup there should be no gap above it , if there is a gap when raised and the nut is still loose then you will need to remove the unit and check it off the machine as a spring would then be your most likely problem . The parts for this are available and if your screws are chewed up its prudent to change them at the same time . I have also known the screw to be all in situ yet broken down the length but usually obvious when you really loosen the small lock nut or remove it , care must be taken if you remove the lock nut compleyely as they are easy to drop and time consuming to locate in the base !
In measurement terms there is just over three pt from fully up to fully down barely that even in general.