Baldwin Tuning Pin problem?

[Jerry Hunt]

I hope you'll excuse me if this question seems trivial, (yeah, yeah,
another newbie - I'm a fairly new tuner). I tuned my first Baldwin a
couple of days ago, a 2 year old Hamilton. Most of the tuning pins were
so tight one could almost justify using an impact wrench. However, I did
run across a couple of pins that were extremely loose, and the one that
troubles me the most is the center pin for the A37. It pulled up okay
(tight but otherwise felt fine). However, when I pushed the hammer back
the other way to drop the pitch down, I nearly fell off the bench
because there was no resistance. BUT the pitch didn't change any. My
first moment of horror was that the tuning pin was broken, but it seemed
to be okay.
At any rate, since I was essentially doing a pitch raise anyway, I left
this note as was (a couple of cents sharp) and tuned the rest of the
piano to it.
I would appreciate any suggestions as to possible cause and solution to
the problem. In retrospect, I'm wondering if the problem might relate to
too much bearing on the pressure bar - I did have problems with several
notes (mostly in upper treble) in settling the note on the desired pitch
- i.e. I could pull the note up, but couldn't seem to get it to drop
down to pitch, then all of a sudden the note would be below pitch again.

Any and all suggestions will be most welcomed.
Thanks.