K&T 2H vertical Oil Leak at Feed Drive Bracket. Any Ideas?

Sorry this is kind of long.

I've got a steady fast dripping oil leak at the gearbox where the splined vertical shafts power the knee.

I had taken the whole rapids clutch housing (which includes that gearbox) off so that I could build and replace a broken head feed bevel gear (also located in that casting). I cleaned everything, and cleaned and rodded out ,and blew out all of the oil passages in all of it. When I reassembled it all and ran it a couple hours I noticed I had an oil slick on the floor beside the flywheel cover door.

Sooo, thinking I must have missed something I tore it all back apart,(half a days work) and checked everything again I can run a wire all the way through the drain back passage back into the knee, I've blown compressed air through it and can hear the air blowing into the knee. Anyway I very carefully reassembled everything, and still I have oil slobbering out from around the gear that the main feed drive shaft runs through.

For the time being I zip-tied a little sheet metal trough on it to send all of the oil into a plastic bowl sitting below the motor pulley. I wouldn't care if it were a little leak, but this thing is filling the pint bowl in about an hour. My 1938 model 2H universal which sits right beside it doesn't leak anything out of that section. The machines are both level, and both have the same oil in them.

Any ideas guys???

Brianison said:

Any ideas guys???

Click to expand...

I had a pretty bad oil leak after repairing the vertical head hand-wheel assembly on my 3H. I had missed sealing the mating surface of the assembly casting to the column where an oil drain port was. So instead of the oil draining from the assembly and back into the column, it was draining down between them to another cavity where it then drained down to the rapid traverse takeoff. Maybe you have the same type of issue?


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What mine is doing, is filling up, and overflowing the brass tube that acts as a labrynth (kind of)which is intended to make the oil drain out through the lower oil ports, instead of just running out around the gear hub that acts as a bearing journal in that box. It is also welling up out of the top side around the upper hub/journal of the same gear. I also do know for a fact that the knee oil level goes down noticeably with a few hours use so I'm pretty certain that it's pumping it out of there.

It's almost as though it's getting oil faster than it can drain it out. I'm not aware of any flow restriction devices, or orifices that are supposed to be in the pressure side of that area, but that's kind of what it acts like it needs.

You didn't by chance change the oil while you were working on it did you? My 2H leaks like you describe if I put ISO 46 weight oil in the knee, but with 10W hydraulic oil in the knee it is just an drip once in a while. I keep a piece soak pad laying on top of the coolant pump and change it out after it gets soggy.

I have taken the thing apart too and can't find anything wrong either. Like you, I reasoned it was pumping oil to those gears faster than it could drain back. Don't know why though. I noticed that as it got warm the leak slowed so I tried the lighter oil and it helped noticeably. I would like to figure out what is going on and stop the leak all together, but I too much other stuff to do.

What I use for oil is a 20 weight hydraulic circulating gear oil from my local oil company that is the same ISO equivalent to the popular branded oils mentioned in other threads on this forum. (cant remember off top of my head the specific ISO#). I have used the same oil in my K&T 2H Universal for years with no problems at all.

So far I've just been catching it in a pan, straining it well, and putting it back in every so often. Not a big deal, more just a wound to my pride as a mechanic.