I'm not sure about the older boats. On mine, the pole has an internal spring that can be "compressed" down to convert the dinette table to a bed. The pole can be stiff and may need a little more effort the first time. Once the ploe is compresed, tighten the control knob to lock it down.

On Caprice it takes a great deal of weight to push down on the table center pole. I have to push down on the table top exactly over the center pole with all my weight to get the table top down. If I push a foot of two off center it will not go down. I can not compress the pole only without the weight of the table top in place.

Agree with Capric, your weight has to be directly over that post to get the table down. I made a folding table (see pic). I can now stand with the post right at my feet and push down directly over the post. It goes down easily; once down, I open the table. Prior to this, my wife would be up on the table slamming away at it and it was still a struggle.

The piston on our boat never worked, so we just took it out, since we use that area as our main sleeping quarters. Works for us.

I'm about to purchase a 2004 36 ft.  Mk11.  The table is currently in the down position and the seller tells me he thinks the spring is broken and he can't put it back up.  He is 80 yrs old and not sure about a lot of things.  Any ideas on this fix?   Or how should I get it up?

On our MK II, after about 10 years, we couldn't push the table down anymore, so we just remove the leg assembly and stow it behind the port settee.  It is tapered at both ends to fit into the floor and table fittings and can be removed easily by jiggling slightly as it is pulled out.  Then we just drop the table top into the down position.  Much easier than trying to balance on top of the table and jumping up and down, which was how we did it before I turned 65 and was told not to jump on tables anymore!