Thanks for the tips! I worked with it a little more and it sewed some decent looking stitches. The upper tension had to be much tighter than I thought. There is no tension release working off the presser foot lift lever, just a tab on the lower leaf to press down if you need to pull thread.
If I ran it too fast the bobbin thread broke, repeatedly. Although the shuttle I found fits, I'm still not sure it's the correct one. When I have it threaded and ready to pick up the lower thread, the upper thread is grabbed by the front "clip" that goes in the shuttle notch and I really have to pull on it to bring up the thread. I'm not sure the bobbins are correct either, as there's a point on each end but no indentation for it on the shuttle carrier. I have never worked with a VS machine, but I have 2 others in the queue waiting to be cleaned up and tested, so I guess it's trial and error.
I'm glad I found this forum, seems I learn something new every time I start reading threads.