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K&T 2k column problems

Blazemaster

Hot Rolled
Joined
Oct 13, 2009
Location
Olympia, Wa
I have an old 2k that I could use for a job and it quit workin on me. Went to start it up one day and it wouldn't quite engage when you pulled the lever, felt like it was catching on something. I also noticed the oil wasn't flowing through the sight glass anymore so i figured it probably wasn't something simple.

I tore into it today hoping to find something obvious but once I got the side cover off, I didn't see anything that stood out. I have the parts manual for this machine and I am wondering if anyone has had any similar problems. I pulled off the oil pick up tube and while it had some gunk in it, it wasn't clogged.

I am wondering if there is a way to spin the oil pump by hand and check to see if its working. There is also a small hydraulic cylinder that changes it from high to low gear, I am not sure if that is part of the problem, or how that gets oil. There is no diagram or anything in the parts manual for the oil pump in the column.

Any fresh ideas? Thanks
 
There should be a an port for a pressure gauge to test hydraulic pressure. My Cincinnati has hydraulic clutches and if the oil isnt flowing, feeds aint working. Also the spindle needs to be running to engage feeds.

Did the rapids work?
 
I am wondering if there is a way to spin the oil pump by hand and check to see if its working. There is also a small hydraulic cylinder that changes it from high to low gear, I am not sure if that is part of the problem, or how that gets oil. There is no diagram or anything in the parts manual for the oil pump in the column.

Any fresh ideas? Thanks

Be it water, lube oil, cooolant, air, or hydraulics, the whole lot of it ain't but a special sub-case of ignorant PLUMBING.

Find or fab a source for pumping oil at decent pressure by hand or with use of shop-air-over. or just use AIR, directly for "tracing" where the stuff not so easily seen runs. EG: any drilled galleries, not just external tubing.

Go through the whole shebang. Pump functionality may also involve a shear pin? Did it? Shear? If so, WHY so?

You had "some" gunk?

Expect to find MORE of it that has been carried-on, then lodged and blocked "somewhere" out of plain view.

Reverse-flush with your oil source and/or shop air, try again.

MOST machine-tools of that era expected drain, kerosense flush, fresh lube at typically six-month intervals.

Betcha your one has been cheated out of anything more than the odd top-up, and perhaps for a score of years?

Now the piper wants his dues.
 
I have an old 2k that I could use for a job and it quit workin on me. Went to start it up one day and it wouldn't quite engage when you pulled the lever, felt like it was catching on something. I also noticed the oil wasn't flowing through the sight glass anymore so i figured it probably wasn't something simple.

I tore into it today hoping to find something obvious but once I got the side cover off, I didn't see anything that stood out. I have the parts manual for this machine and I am wondering if anyone has had any similar problems. I pulled off the oil pick up tube and while it had some gunk in it, it wasn't clogged.

I am wondering if there is a way to spin the oil pump by hand and check to see if its working. There is also a small hydraulic cylinder that changes it from high to low gear, I am not sure if that is part of the problem, or how that gets oil. There is no diagram or anything in the parts manual for the oil pump in the column.

Any fresh ideas? Thanks

Your sayin your pullin the lever on top of the machine ? And it wont go in? Thats a mechanical connection down that shaft, to the pinion, into the rack connected to a yoke that engages that shaft through to the main clutch.
Sounds like something is worn and binding along that path or the clutch is backed off, damaged, loose. Sounds mechanical to me
 
Thanks for the replies. I am going to make another go at it today, I was getting frustrated yesterday. I don't think it was the clutch but I will check it, and all the feeds/rapids worked. It's not in the knee. I'll clean it out and shoot some air through the lines.

I was thinking it was the same thing that Steve Summers went through with his 2k(YouTube), but the shaft inside looks fine.
 
the shaft inside looks fine.

Aye, but a shear-pin, taper pin, Woodruff key - I KNOW NOT if these are even in your mill - that fails isn't obvious if your eyes aren't there, watching whilst hands move a lever at a distance, one man, working alone.

Wonder if a mag-base indicator holder or a worklight stanchion or such can hold a camera or phone aimed into places hard to see whilst manipulating controls, elsewhere?

Surely it can do, and full-motion video streamed live to some other screen and/or reviewed later and now...one man is a "team".

Dunno about the rest of you lot, but I'm going to go ahead and equip meself with some extra bits of kit easily rigged for exactly that.

Already found a "selfie stick" useful for reading data plates on the backsides of motors and such.

Sixty years of keeping dental mirrors in my toolbox is no match for "new tech" most of us already own anyway.

:)
 
Yes. Spindle lever would not engage, and the oil was not flowing through the sight glass for the spindle/column. I still haven't had a minute to look at it closer.
 








 
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