Tom, good morning.
24TPI isn't a fine feed within the meaning of the phrase in this circumstance, and you don't need to reverse the 17/57 gear pair on stud A to get it. Reversing this gear gives you the range of fine feeds as marked on the gearbox label, but we're talking about a few thou per rev (13 down to 1) such as you would use in turning a parallel surface.
If setting the top lever to centre, and the sliding handle to third from the right doesn't get you 24TPI there is something else wrong. Could you let us know what thread your scratch test showed, maybe we can reverse engineer the cause from the symptoms.
![dsc_0529-1.jpg dsc_0529-1.jpg](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==)
Handily my picture happens to be taken from the very angle that lets the top lever obscure the 24TPI setting on the label.
What thread have you actually cut, and if it is very fine indeed is the gear on stud A already reversed?
Otherwise can we have a picture of the gear train from the mandrel down to the gearbox input gear cos' the explanation's there somewhere.
HTH Simon