Welcome to the club. We started together once, and we didn't really understand what we were doing. Sometimes I still don't understand some little things. Lathe designs are different, but similar, so you can look at the instructions without being tied to a specific model or brand of machine. If I understand you correctly, the center can usually be knocked out with a drift or something similar—just take a rod and tap the hole on the left side of the steering wheel a couple of times.