Thread: 10EE bearing question

I just bought a 10ee last Saturday. Here she is....

Her birth date is 2/1949, mgfr's no. 32127.




We got the phase converter all hooked up, filled her up with oil, greased the motors and generator, fired it up and everything looked good. Then we noticed a bunch of oil running out under the lathe.........

We traced it to the "back gear unit" I believe it is called, I am really new to all of this......
It looks like someone shifted it without stopping the spindle and broke one of the rods that shifts it. Notice all the brazing...


I am guessing that a piece got into the rear bearing and destroyed it because someone has replaced the back bearing with what looks to be a sealed bearing.


I think all the oil is leaking out through the rectangular hole that is down and to the right of the shaft, in the picture above. I am thinking that rectangular hole was there to feed oil to the old bearing. That is the only place that I can find, the casting looks good and the oil stopped at this level. Now the question, since this is a sealed bearing, can I just seal off this rectangular hole to stop the leak? Is there anything else behind this that needs the lubrication??

Any help would be appreciated.

Also, it has an attachment that appears to be for threading but I am not sure of it's function or how it is used. It is the bottom rod in the picture belowand the knob to the far right of the lathe. I am sure this will be very familiar to all of you.


Well this is my first post and I hope the pictures all work. I am glad to be here and have already enjoyed reading through many, many posts.

Originally Posted by gbward3

We got the phase converter all hooked up, filled her up with oil, greased the motors and generator, fired it up and everything looked good. Then we noticed a bunch of oil running out under the lathe.........

We traced it to the "back gear unit" I believe it is called, I am really new to all of this......
It looks like someone shifted it without stopping the spindle and broke one of the rods that shifts it. Notice all the brazing...

I am guessing that a piece got into the rear bearing and destroyed it because someone has replaced the back bearing with what looks to be a sealed bearing.

Not a problem, a sealed bearing there should be OK.

I think all the oil is leaking out through the rectangular hole that is down and to the right of the shaft, in the picture above. I am thinking that rectangular hole was there to feed oil to the old bearing. That is the only place that I can find, the casting looks good and the oil stopped at this level. Now the question, since this is a sealed bearing, can I just seal off this rectangular hole to stop the leak? Is there anything else behind this that needs the lubrication??

Any help would be appreciated.

It looks to me that the oil line in the sight is below the hole you're worried about. I suspect that you may have simply overfilled the backgear and the oil was coming out the front.

Also, it has an attachment that appears to be for threading but I am not sure of it's function or how it is used. It is the bottom rod in the picture belowand the knob to the far right of the lathe. I am sure this will be very familiar to all of you.

Search for "ELSR" and you'll find a gazillion posts referencing the "electrical lead screw reverse" mechanism.

Oh, yeah, welcome to the group.

Welcome. My lathe is virtually identical to yours, same MG, same motor, same back gear, same keyed motor shaft, same ELSR.

The rectangular hole you refer to is not to carry lube to the motor bearing, it's there to provide a return for any oil that might pass through the bearing. It connects to a labryinth cavity on the motor side of the bearing. A shielded or sealed bearing on the motor should be fine.

There are quite a few places the back gear can leak, mine used all of them and made a new one of its own by having a cracked case casting.

It's too bad you disassembled it without cleaning the exterior and trying to locate the leak(s). Much of the evidence was compromised by taking it apart first.

One thing is suspicious in the motor photo. The lower dowel pin hole appears to have silicone sealant mushed into it. Are all four dowel pins present? There are two at each of the two major joints. They must all be there at assembly to hold the parts in proper alignment.

Your best bet from here is to disassemble, clean everything and reassemble with the correct gaskets using high quality dressing (looks like someone used silicone for the motor to gearcase joint w/o a gasket). Carefully examine everything and get it all squared away. Flat surfaces flat, etc. From my experience, don't ignore looking for cracks in the castings.

Whoever did the repair did you no favor. The taper pins holding the forks to the shaft should have threaded ends to pull them, yours don't. Neither did mine, a butcher had worked inside my back gear too. I ended up cutting the shaft to extract the pieces and made a new shaft and threaded end taper pins for reassembly.

Don't forget to replace the shaft seal. A SKF 4996 works well but be careful to protect it from being cut by the sharp taper pin hole as you install it.

Good luck.

Thank you for the reply. Having the name of the attachment made all the difference in finding out the information that I was looking for.

Thanks DaveE9067, that information is very helpful. I did trace the leak as best I could before I opened it. It had very small leak behind the pully but the vast majority of the oil was leaking out the back of the box and down one of the four "arms" of the DC motor and collected there. It is a large leak becuase it all drained out in about 10 or 15minutes.

The only place I can find that it may have gotten out is through that rectangular hole. I think if I block that off, it will fix it.

Thanks for the advice. I will let you know how it turns out.

There is a tailstock on E-Bay for a 10EE. I am not the seller. I don't know if you just removed it and the guards for transport or not. Looks good.
Tom

Thank you for telling me about the tailstock but I do already have one. Like you said they were just removed while I was working on it.

Originally Posted by gbward3

Thanks DaveE9067, that information is very helpful. I did trace the leak as best I could before I opened it. It had very small leak behind the pully but the vast majority of the oil was leaking out the back of the box and down one of the four "arms" of the DC motor and collected there. It is a large leak becuase it all drained out in about 10 or 15minutes.

The only place I can find that it may have gotten out is through that rectangular hole. I think if I block that off, it will fix it.

Thanks for the advice. I will let you know how it turns out.

Don't block the rectangular hole, it's there for the reason mentioned earlier. The only way it would leak is if the end bell casting is cracked into that passage.

There is something else amiss. The RTV on the motor end bell flange appears thick. If those mating surfaces are flat there would not be that much RTV between them. The white RTV is suspicious too. Every RTV sealant meant for oil contact that I've encounted is not white.

Make sure the mating surfaces are flat and mate properly. Use the correct gaskets and a high quality gasket dressing intended for oil service. Hylomar is an excellent one.

Are the dowel pins present?

Also you are missing the switch lever on the right side of the apron. The shaft with taper pin hole above the lower shaft is where it goes. Check out the first picture in this post. In the first picture.
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb...30-100042.html
It is the one on the far right of the apron. Also shown in the last picture, top left of picture.
Chuck

Well, we got it fixed. The rectangular hole is actually lower than the level mark on the site glass. It is deceiving in the picture. When they installed the sealed bearing, they did not put all the pieces back behind the bearing that make up the oil seal. I think as the bearing turned it was creating a current in the oil that came in through the rectangular hole and pushing it up and over the lip of the casting.

Anyway, we covered the hole in the casting, put it all back together and there is no leak.

I really appreciate all your help and advice. It helped a lot.

rke[pler, thank you for your info on the ESLR, it was very helpful (I read some of your earlier posts).