Toolmaster 1d, Back Gear lube?, Table feed Cam Follower?

Hi,

I'm a happy new owner of a Toolmaster 1D, rescued from a garage in California. Seem to be in pretty good shape overall. The ways feel nice and smooth. Got lucky as it was already running on 220 with a small built in capacitor phase converter. After reading the forums here I'm making the move from monoset to ER40 collets. It has the quill lever oil leak, but I'm a little nervous about getting in there and replacing the seal right now. It has the X table power feed. The right hand selector was frozen, but after taking the front of the gear box off I found the sliding gear was glued to the shaft with oil turned to tar. After much WD40 and penetrating oil, it now slides fine. I did find a part in the bottom of the gear box that looks like a broken "Pin Follower" part number 134b in the manual on the Table Power Feed Gear Housing page. The power feed was working to some extent though. Move the control lever to either side and the table moves. Was the cam follower a mechanism to auto reverse the table when the control lever hits the dogs? I hear clicking noise in the area of the back gear at certain spindle speeds. I'm thinking that's not normal, and considering how old the oil was in the power feed, I'm worried about the back gear oil and the spindle lubrication. I have the "Service Manual and Parts List Catalog" and the "Operators Manual" but can find no mention of back gear or spindle bearing lubrication for the 1D. So here's my questions:

1) Is the cam follower in the X power feed for auto table reverse?
2) What lube is used for the back gear, and how do you get it in there?
3) What lube is used for the spindle bearings and how do you get it in there?
4) I have the motor housing off the mill and am looking at the backgear cover plate. How do you lift it off to check the backgear for the clicking noise?
5) How do you get the top cover off the power feed to replace the cam follower pin? I took the bolts out and worked on it a while, including a bolt on a lever down into the oil hole, but I can't get that cover to budge.

Thanks!,
John

Hi John
Welcome to PM. I'll look up the info you need and get back to you in a few days.
Andy

Thank you Andy, I look forward to hearing back from you. I've looked through the archives and seen similar questions about Toolmaster 1D back gear and spindle lubrication, but not seen any good explanations

JohnOfAllTrades said:

Hi,

I'm a happy new owner of a Toolmaster 1D, rescued from a garage in California. Seem to be in pretty good shape overall. The ways feel nice and smooth. Got lucky as it was already running on 220 with a small built in capacitor phase converter. After reading the forums here I'm making the move from monoset to ER40 collets. It has the quill lever oil leak, but I'm a little nervous about getting in there and replacing the seal right now. It has the X table power feed. The right hand selector was frozen, but after taking the front of the gear box off I found the sliding gear was glued to the shaft with oil turned to tar. After much WD40 and penetrating oil, it now slides fine. I did find a part in the bottom of the gear box that looks like a broken "Pin Follower" part number 134b in the manual on the Table Power Feed Gear Housing page. The power feed was working to some extent though. Move the control lever to either side and the table moves. Was the cam follower a mechanism to auto reverse the table when the control lever hits the dogs? I hear clicking noise in the area of the back gear at certain spindle speeds. I'm thinking that's not normal, and considering how old the oil was in the power feed, I'm worried about the back gear oil and the spindle lubrication. I have the "Service Manual and Parts List Catalog" and the "Operators Manual" but can find no mention of back gear or spindle bearing lubrication for the 1D. So here's my questions:

1) Is the cam follower in the X power feed for auto table reverse?
2) What lube is used for the back gear, and how do you get it in there?
3) What lube is used for the spindle bearings and how do you get it in there?
4) I have the motor housing off the mill and am looking at the backgear cover plate. How do you lift it off to check the backgear for the clicking noise?
5) How do you get the top cover off the power feed to replace the cam follower pin? I took the bolts out and worked on it a while, including a bolt on a lever down into the oil hole, but I can't get that cover to budge.

Thanks!,
John

Click to expand...

Hi John,

The quill oil lever leak is notorious. I have replaced the seal once myself and documented it and it seemed to help at first but not for long. I don't know what to say. Maybe I installed it wrong? As far as the cam follower I am 100 miles away from the shop and going by memory, but I think there is a little cover in the front of the machine right below the table above the knee that if you open you will see some stuff in there. I can't recall. If it is what I am thinking of it isn't so much to auto reverse as it is to stop the feed so that you don't power it into the side of the knee. Bad things happen when you do that!

As for the back gear/spindle lube. I don't think you need to lube the spindle bearings those should be sealed and I try to stay out of them. My suggestion if you want to get to know your mill is rotate the head upside down so that the spindle bottom faces the ceiling. There are 3 large allen head bolts that hold the motor and the Varispeed drive to the machine. Undo those bolts and let the whole motor assembly fall to the table. Of course brace the whole setup so that the whole top of the head doesn't fall on the floor. Lower the table and you will be able to get a good look at everything. While you have it in this position you can take the spindle power feed off the side of the head and try to replace that seal in there. I documented this once before here but it hasn't seemed to do much good with time.

Rereading I see that you appear to have the motor off the mill. I am not sure then how you get to the backgear. Can you see the drive gear that drives the power feed? If you don't you likely aren't in the same place I am thinking of.


As to remove the power feed keep on rocking it and use a screw driver to get under it. There is a 2" or so bronze/brass bushing that runs into that off the side of the quill. Below there is your culprit bad seal too.

If you can post manual scans here that may be a bigger help in trouble shooting this. I have had it apart a few times myself both to fix a broken shear pin, as well as the seal and know it pretty well, but I just haven't memorized the part numbers and names so I am not even sure if we are talking about the same things.

Hi Adam, Thank you for the reply. Yes, I do have the motor off, but only the motor and varispeed drive. The output of the varispeed drive has a smooth shaft with a key in it that drives a hollow shaft with a slot in it in the next assembly down. That next assembly down contains the back gear. The back gear assembly is the same height off the floor as the HI/LOW/NEUTRAL speed lever on the side of the head. The HI/LOW/NEUTRAL lever slides a gear in the back gear assembly to engage/disengage the back gear. It just seems odd to me that there is no mention in any of the original Toolmaster manuals that I have about back gear lubrication. Like you, I am reluctant to touch the spindle bearings, but again, what's the "official" Toolmaster position on lubricating them?

Even with the motor assembly off, there is a "cover plate" that closes off just a portion of the next casting down. Underneath that plate is the back gear assembly. I can see two bearings, two shafts, two C clips on the shafts, all exposed in the plate. I'll get a picture posted this weekend, that will be worth a 1000 words. I've pulled the screws from the plate, but it still has two alignment pins in it. If there's a gasket there, the cover is probably "glued" with old oil to the casting and very hard to get off.

Here's a picture of the motor suspended over the mill.

And here's a close up of the back gear cover plate

Andy, I could find no information about lubrication for the back gear or spindle for the 1D. Do you have another information source? Thanks, John

Hi John,

I am not 100% sure where you are trying to go with this, however from memory alone and with no manual or machine in front of me, I have often found the more important assembly to open is the next one down from where you are in that photo. Basically put the whole motor assembly back together. If you have a forklift or overhead crane I guess there is no harm in doing it your way but otherwise I would recommend that you just turn the head upside down on the table and lower the table to drop the head rather than lift it. I don't know how much of a burden that lift of yours is. So if you have a forklift or crane that makes this easy go ahead and ignore.

With that being said. Look under where the red arrow is in the image below, and there are 3 large set screws. Try undoing those and remove that whole section of the head. I think you may find the back gears that you are looking for under there. Like I said I am not 100% sure what you are trying to take apart here. Also of interest once you get that open will be a little plastic gear held on by a snap ring. You will need to remove that one, if you want to take the power down feed off to get in there if needed.