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I had one of these for a number of years. Completely dissassembled and re-assembled it several times to make sure it was all working correctly. They are technically not that difficult a unit to play with and surprisingly well designed. I unfortunately dont have it now, sold it a while back, someone else on here does....
But I think you will find that if the motors are going, and you can hear them, you will find it will track no problems at all (once you put it together properly). Mine always made an unpleasant sound while the motors were going, I think its just how they are, and as they are a completely sealed motor there is little you can do to change that.
You may have a problem with how you put it together... From memory, basically the motors drive directly onto a large toothed wheel (say 8" across), this wheel is attached onto the drive plate, the forks only lock onto the drive plate if the RA lock is engaged, so you need to be careful not to get greese on the lock or drive plate, and the lock may need adjusting to get the correct right height. This is done by removing the knob on the RA lock and screwing it in or out to get the right height and then re-attaching the knob.
The setting circles do nothing, and are near useless (IMHO). The large spring you spoke of simply adds a bit of tension into the setting circle plate to allow it to spin, but not too freely... If memory serves it goes between the setting circle plate and the drive plate (or maybe its the other way around, its fairly obvious anyway).
The other thing to watch is to make sure the gears from the motor are actually engaging on the drive ring. The motors can be moved in their housing, and made to do so, so you need to set them to sit on the drive ring, if you have removed the motors from the bottom half of the unit, and put them back you may not have them in exactly the right spot, hence not engaging. This is an easy mistake, and one I had to deal with. The idea is to get both motors engaging the ring equally so that one is not taking more load than the other. You will hear the motors take up the load if they are engaged.
Finally yes, its a slow moving setup, dont expect to see anything occuring visually. Easiest way to test if its working or not is to point it at a land object at high power, and see if the object starts to drift when the motor is on. You dont need to wait until night to see that.
The dec adjustment is also fun to play with, and can take some getting right.
Mine was surprisingly accurate, and could track objects for quite some time without adjustment (even with crappy polar alignment).
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