1939 Round dual restoration

1939 Round dial restoration

Greetings all,

Just wanted to post an update and a few easy lessons learned from my restoration of #7158...

The round dial gearbox was fun. I was intending on just cleaning off, flushing, and running without doing what I and we usually do, and ripping it to shreds, repairing and replacing anything awry. Well...



That’s the before and after. If uploading photos wasn’t such a PITA I would post more along the way.

Backtracking a bit, before removing from the lathe, I was having trouble running the gearbox through the range of operation. Sometimes I couldn’t turn the center knob, sometimes I could. Push, pull, didn’t matter. It wasn’t until last nights final assembly, that it dawned upon me...


When I disassembled, the hardened cone on the tumbler lock was tight to the main casting and locked with the lock nut. I played with it and adjusted it a turn or two away, and it works! Problem one solved.

Problem two is the gasket, and through all my digging on PM for info, none was found. There are a few where the thickness of the gasket affects interaction of parts. Here is one instance. Thinnest material I could find is 1/64” and that is over twice the thickness of the original. I tried it and all is great until the final installation of the clutch shifter and feed shifter knobs and their pins. Now they won’t move. So off to cut a new thinner gasket, perhaps from paper. I will follow up with an update if it solves the clearance issue.

The last lesson is to educate yourself about bearings. Most of mine were in halfway decent shape after 80 years, but I replaces all except the three flanged angular contact bearings, which will have a N prefix in the new departure line. They are expensive and hard to find. Mine are serviceable. But the rest are available. I am working on an excel sheet of all the bearings with monarch part numbers, and their new equivalents. I will upload when I have it together, under a new topic so it is easier to search. And it will cover early round dial gearboxes.

JP

I went through a round dial gearbox and replaced bearings about 15-20 years ago, but the comments you made about the ND bearings was the same as I found at the time. The bearings with the circlip flanges were expensive (more than spindle bearings). My solution was to cut a groove in the outer race of a standard bearing without the circlip, which was cheap. A 10EE can handle cutting hardened steel bearing races with a good carbide cutter. A lot of red sparks, but it did the job, and the existing bearing's circlip was transferred over.

If it works assembled without a gasket, try the loctite red anaerobic gasket material. Not silicone, more like loctite without the grip

thermite said:

The mention of a "paper" gasket isn't necessarily a "bad thing", either.

All one has to do is grab "100% rag bond" instead of cheap sulfite "copy" paper.

Pink rosin-impregnated "builders paper" as used to be de riguer between underlayment and hardwood flooring to reduce squeak is another durable but cheap source stocked at Big Box. I cover my DESK with, periodically throw it away and renew rather than having to try to CLEAN the wood it protects!




With either a coating of thin shellac or a nice even smear of soap, wax, or grease, a paper gasket can last a VERY long time in this use.

Not as if it were an IC engine head-gasket. Not much heat, here, and no real lube pressure, either.

Click to expand...

Interesting that you bring up rag bond. I make paper for a living (neenah.com)......in the day we did make paper from old rags / cotton linens, etc. Had a big tumbling "boiler" we use to cook them in to break them down before turning them into paper. We don't do that any more. In the mill there was an area that was named queens alley where the "rags" were pre processed to remove buttons, zippers and so forth.

IIRC paper money is 100 percent rag, so if the gasket was small enough........would be a funny find for a future machine mechanic

JPD said:

The last lesson is to educate yourself about bearings. Most of mine were in halfway decent shape after 80 years, but I replaces all except the three flanged angular contact bearings, which will have a N prefix in the new departure line. They are expensive and hard to find. Mine are serviceable. But the rest are available. I am working on an excel sheet of all the bearings with monarch part numbers, and their new equivalents. I will upload when I have it together, under a new topic so it is easier to search. And it will cover early round dial gearboxes.

JP

Click to expand...

Were your flanged bearings packed with grease by any chance? I am in the process of rebuilding my 1942 gearbox, and it appears both the upper flanged angular contact bearings had been packed with grease at some point. I'm wondering if the previous owner was concerned about oil getting all the way up to the bearings and took the liberty to pack them with grease, or if the grease was from the factory. Any thoughts?

thermite said:

Sure as HELL would not expect that from the Monarch factory. Very clear they are as to the correct "DTE" or SOCONY-Vacuum // Mobil Gargoyl predecessor, spindle and gearbox. Vactra for the apron largely as it is then also pumped onto the ways.

If oil ain't getting damn near EVERYWHERE insde those housings, one wonders how so much of it escapes!



Not the bearing maker, either, ordinarily.

They generally pack with a "preservative" (only) light oil with a "main claim to fame" that it is easily pushed-out and has low risk of incompatibility.

Up to the installer what goes in next.

That said?

The Hendey Tool & Gage - about as CLOSE a "workalike" as a 10EE gets amongst its competition - SPECIFIES grease for its spindle bearings.

And they are very, very similar bearings, type, size, precision class, RPM, and loading.

IOW - probably no harm.

Main diff "in general"?

Oil has no defined life span so long as flushed and replenished "soon enough" to not polymerize.

Greases DO have finite lives in service, start to go risky about 5 to 6 years out, for "ordinary" ones if the service is at all severe.

About double that longevity figure for Kluber. Because they can get paid for that.

Click to expand...

Thank you for the explanation, I figured monarch wouldn’t use grease, but i wanted to verify before reassembling.


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JPD, did you figure out a solution for the front gasket? Have you thought about using the 1/64" gasket and just taking .010" or so off the backside of the control knobs? I'm not sure if there are any other clearance issues created by using the thicker 1/64" gasket, but this would solve the control knob rubbing.