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Kitigawa Chuck Leaking

wrustle

Titanium
Joined
Jun 8, 2006
Location
Massachusetts
Does anyone know what could be the cause of the chuck leaking? It ran fine yesterday, all day. This morning I started up my lathe, opened the chuck and noticed oil squirting out from it, and again when closing the chuck. Also saw it was dripping quite a bit from underneath the chuck. Upon closer inspection I noticed a screw missing in the middle of the chuck where oil was squirting out. It must have loosened up and fell out sometime yesterday when it was running because I never noticed it before.
IkegaiChuck2.jpg


You can see in the picture the screw in the eleven o'clock position is missing and that's where I saw the oil squirting out from.


IkegaiChuck1.jpg


With all the coolant and chips in the machine yesterday it would have been very difficult to ever notice anything wrong. It's a pretty good leak though, my hydraulic tank sight gauge is below the bottom most line so it leaked out VERY quickly, because the machine was just filled with fluids last weekend. Could the missing screw be the cause of the leak....or is it something more dreadful?!?! I don't even know where to begin taking this thing apart either so if I must, please feel free to offer direction.

Happy Holidays,
Russ
 
We had the leaking chuck issue on our Hardinge recently...it really wasn't the chuck as they are all mechanical. The hydraulic actuator that pulls the draw tube was the culprit...you should have better luck than we had, as ours is all super special Hardinge stuff, and you most likely have a Kitagawa actuator, which I believe has off the shelf hydraulic seals and such. My CNC repair guy came by, yanked out the acutator, took it back to his shop and had it apart in about 2 hours total, including drive time. That's when we figured out it was all Hardinge especialle inside. I would presume yours to be the same situation where the seals gave up the go...make sure you fire up you sump skimmer. Steve
 
Thanks for the heads up Steve......pulled the guards off in the back of the machine and as you descibed, it's the actuator. Everything back there inside was all oil and you can tell it is fresh. It is in fact a Kitagawa Actuator so hopefully I can find parts pretty easily. Going to take some time though to try to figure out how to get the damn thing off of there.....I swear to you it looks all one piece from the back of the shaft all the way to the chuck. Oh well.....thanks again!

Happy Holidays!
Russ
 
Check that the oil return hose (probably not the correct word) on the bottom of the hydraulic cylinder is not plugged.
On our brand new HAAS Sl-20 there was a 90° bend directly under the cylinder, and when the oil couldn't flow freely it escaped through the cylinder instead.

serviceman replaced that with a 45° (or maybe you could say 135°) bend and it has run fine since that.
 
Russ.

You have had a bad year with things breaking down.

Kitagawa are really good about providing information on their web site.
http://www.kitagawa.com/SUPPORT/TypicalChuckCylinder/tabid/124/Default.aspx

This should help in working out how to take it off, its not that hard if the nut in the chuck isn’t seized. You have to wind that off the draw bar tube. As you loosen the cylinder off the back of the spindle. There’s only the 3 hoses and the 6 mounting bolts on the cylinder end.
http://www.kitagawa.com/SUPPORT/HowToMountYourChuckandCylinder/tabid/134/Default.aspx

Typical, cylinder drawing here. http://www.kitagawa.com/?tabid=113

Service is in Illinios. You could send it to them, they should also sell you a seal kit. If you have a good source of metric O-rings near by and can afford the down time, there’s not much in them. I’d be pretty sure that if its leaking out of the front of the cylinder, and running along the draw tube it needs seals. Blocked return lines normally have it leaking out of the LH end through the labyrinth.

Regards Phil.
 
Tell me about it Phil......it has been a tough year! But you know what....I have older machines, and that's the way it goes. They all make great money when they run, but sometimes $hit happens and you're stuck for a few days like now. I really can't complain....(but sometimes it does feel good) since I only paid $3,000.00 for the machine a year ago November, and it has made a bunch of money since then, so my investment has paid off many times over. I've learned alot on that machine, both in programming and maintenance and repair, so someday when I take the plunge and get a new one in here I will have all the dumba$$ crashes and programming learning curves behind me.....at least in theory!
Thanks for the links, I will check them out, and if you have anymore advice in replacing the seals, or removing this unti from the machine, don't be shy,....I could really use the assistance!

Happy Holidays!
Russ
 








 
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