Deckel FP1 oil related questions

I am working my way through the restoration of a neglected FP1 and first of all I wanted to say thank you for all the information posted here as well as the help I have received.

Unfortunately the saddle was packed with old, hardened grease. My saddle unit was produced before there was a reservoir and sight glass in the saddle. I am having a hard time removing the bevel gears and I am wondering if this is necessary? They appear to be in decent shape. I cleaned the bevel gear area, removed the plugs and am able to get the grease out of this area. Do the bevel gears need to come out for cleaning or is this enough? Since there isn’t an oil reservoir I don’t know if there are the same oil metering apertures above the bevel gears. Any thoughts?

Secondly, I am replacing the oil wicks throughout the machine with candle wick material suggested here. The oil reservoir at the top of the central column (behind the long horizontal, cylindrical gear) has several wicks. These lead to the next lowest set of spindle drive gears as well as small piping for the chain drive sprockets. With around 2” of wick in these pipes the reservoir drains through the pipes pretty quickly. Does anyone know how much wick should be inside these pipes? I can’t imagine the sprockets need much oil.

Thanks in advance,
John

Jcgrimes said:

Unfortunately the saddle was packed with old, hardened grease. I am having a hard time removing the bevel gears and I am wondering if this is necessary?

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I assume you mean the bevel gears that drive the X-axis lead screw clutches. The only way to remove these is by pulling down the top one of the two bronze bushings that sit under the central gear. Pushing this back into place requires some specialised tools that you can make yourself, but is not needed to clean out the grease.

The bevel gear and bronze bearing arrangement is very similar in the FP1 and FP2. I suggest you look at this thread:
(FP1) https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...e-mills/fp1-notes-cleaning-disassembly-278383
Post 36 and posts 44-46 address the bevel gears specifically.

This thread (FP2) might also be of help:
FP2 vertical table and support tear-down and reassembly

Some time invested in reading through these threads will probably save you a lot of time and head-scratching.

Cheers,
Bruce

Thanks Bruce, I hadn’t seen your second link before and this helped.

John

Hi John,

Jcgrimes said:

I hadn’t seen your second link before and this helped.

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I'm glad this was helpful. If your questions were *not* answered in those links, please ask here, perhaps attaching a photo or two for guidance. There is tremendous expertise available from the people who are active in this forum. Personally, I would not have been able to fix up my mill without that help.

Cheers,
Bruce