George the unit does have a clutch, just not the type you are thinking of. This unit has a very close clouple clutch arrangment that shifts from forward to reverse. It is "suppose" to run from a reamer cycle which is straight feed in and then out. But if you look at the 1st page top rh side under thru holes. It says to avoid excessive wear on the unit it is best to have a fast initial retract to reverse the unit for retraction. Those are the KEY words.
Also do you have a spindle RPM indicator to verify the actual spindle speed. The speed and feed have to be correct for the unit to operate correctly. If you plan to do a lot of tapping I would suggest you install an encoder to aloow you to see the true RPM. Also with the RPM dro workin you can USE feed per rev settings instead of inch per min. It makes the tapping programming very simple.
(;-) TP