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Cleaning up a VN22LU

Brandenberger

Hot Rolled
Joined
Sep 19, 2017
Hi,

Just finally picked up my new to me VN 22LU, and have
Started cleaning it up. It seems in great shape but needing
At minimum a thorough cleaning and maintenance.

Some questions are coming up that hopefully people can help with?

- the feeds motor has an oil slinger which is supposed to lubricate the chain. I assume but can’t tell whether this oil reservoir is isolated or connected
to the machine base coolant sump. Would seem crazy to have them joined, just checking. I’ve pumped 5gal of cutting oil out of the base and a big pile of chips. I’m probably going to clean the coolant sump thoroughly and leave it dry for now.

- I removed the main motor and pulled it apart, because it was caked in dirt internally. It seemed to run well enough though. A large amount of grease packed in behind the bearings, so they weren’t dry. I will clean the bearings at minimum... any preferences on keeping the originals vs replacing with shielded / sealed?

- the feeds motor says grease every 3years, and says refer to some card for directions which is likely missing for 70years. These are Westinghouse motors it seems. Anyone know the procedure? There are no obvious zerks. Not clear if that motor must be removed to grease?

- coolant motor seems to be a GE. Manual doesn’t say much about it, and any motor spec tag is gone. In case I want to keep it, anyone know the electrical specs? It probably hasn’t been run in 30-40years because there is a screw blocking the coolant power switch on the control panel.

Thanks!
Phil

0215DDB6-3375-4857-9D9B-2AAF82978610.jpgFD6BBB90-7328-44B0-922A-B70B8B09618C.jpg53CDF69E-FA58-4C27-8559-DF5CDC8D8884.jpgED2487C4-795C-457D-8704-6FA9996B2DCF.jpg
 
For the main and feed motors, I would keep the existing bearings unless you find actual damage. They're not like spindle bearings that would telegraph irregularities into the work. Since there is no idea what type of old grease was last used, I would completely clean/flush all traces of old grease and then lube with any modern electric motor grease.
 
Typical old motor will have two plugs per bearing-remove both , replace one with a zirc and stop pumping when clean grease comes out the open hole. If there is only one plug or zirc one or two pumps is plenty.

I’d replace like with like if necessary.

Been a while since I owned a 22, but surely the feed chain has its own reservoir.

Scott
 
Typical old motor will have two plugs per bearing-remove both , replace one with a zirc and stop pumping when clean grease comes out the open hole. If there is only one plug or zirc one or two pumps is plenty.

I’d replace like with like if necessary.

Been a while since I owned a 22, but surely the feed chain has its own reservoir.

Scott

This is the back of the feed motor.

I scraped off the years of muck and indeed there's a flathead plug screw
there... just need the right zerk. There's only one on the top though, and
given the thing probably hasn't been greased in 35years or so, I may need
to pull the motor out and clean the bearings...

700ADB86-01CF-4F9E-9E0A-92EED02E26D9.jpg

Thanks,
Phil
 
I strongly recommend that you do pull the motors apart to clean them out. Trying to purge old hardened grease by pushing it through with a surplus of new grease is seldom as successful as you'd like, and incompatible thickeners between the old and new greases can cause some truly unholy messes.
 
Over greasing electric motors is a big problem. Some outfits remove the Zerks and plug the holes to keep over zealous maintenance workers from pumping so much grease into the motor that it can be a fire hazard. Here's what the main motor on my VN No. 16 looked like:
IMG_7047.jpg
Note the brass plug that should have been removed each time the motor was greased. Instead, the excess grease got pushed into the motor, getting dangerously close to the windings.

I agree, pull the motor apart and completely clean out the old grease. Regrease it with a modern synthetic grease like Mobilith SHC 100 and put the plug back. You DO NOT need to repeatedly grease the motor.

Cal
 
I just recently found a great chart that shows how much grease per bearing by bearing size. The bearings on my 3hp knee mill 6205/6206 need
.12 and .15 oz . I weighed the grease on a 150gram electronic scale and it was 7 pumps for the .15oz

Many motors have the bearing size on the name plate.

The part I found amazing was at 3600 rpm it only needs grease every 8000 hours, that’s 4 years at 8 per day

I have the link at work if anyone cares

2d4c7a4c220102795fb43730096e75b1.jpg



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
Van Norman 22L knee sheet metal?

Hi,

Progress report... pulled both motors, cleaned bearings and re-greased with Mobilith grease.

Test ran them on the VFDs (will be one per motor, 2hp each) and they seem to run nicely.
It turns out the main motor casting has a hairline crack in the casting at about the 12o'clock
position (top) which became apparent when I stripped the paint. Not sure if it is worth repairing or not, since the two endbells effectively reinforce across that joint anyway.

Two new questions:

However, I found interestingly that the knee's top surface (v-way mating to universal saddle) seems to have a sheet metal layer on top of the base casting, clamped on at the front. Is this normal? It isn't present in the drawings I have from the manual.

knee - 3.jpg

Second, this is the cutterhead on the machine:

knee - 7.jpg

I've drained it (and the knee, and the ram), filled them with diesel and let them soak
and run a bit. However I'm wondering about whether I should clean the grease out
of the spindle bearings, or just re-grease them? It isn't clear what kind of grease the
prior owner was using, so not clear how compatible the greases would be.

The manual I have doesn't match this mill exactly, so I'm not totally sure what kind of
bearings these are, and whether I should leave them alone or remove and clean.

Thanks,
Phil
 

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