Good news! Miracles will never cease.
Then again, after the tweak fest that got the 1806 pulley working, I could at least choose the most promising 1816 fail, and knew what to aim for to succeed.
Two false trails quickly led to dead ends, including one "dizzy" fail.
A fresh start and one shift in the right direction, and the miracle happened from nowhere after less than ten minutes of tweaking.
But it's nice to "prove" that the simple rubber punt could be beaten.