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cross feed dial assembly seal on Round Dial

rimcanyon

Diamond
Joined
Sep 28, 2002
Location
Salinas, CA USA
Can I replace the felt seal for a round dial cross feed dial assembly with the seal that is used on square dial machines, that gets installed in the saddle? i.e. are the bores the same on round and square dial saddles? If so, does anyone have the seal part number and/or dimensions? I should have done this when I had the saddle off, I hope I can install the seal through the front opening on the saddle.
 
You can surely get 'some form of" seal to reduce seepage into place. It isn't under direct pressure and the max pressure is silly-low anyway.

Now and then, I've had "acceptable" results razor-blade slitting an ignorant assortment-box "O" ring, then setting it with the aid of a dab of RTV so as to get it around a shaft I didn't want to be bothered pulling apart.

Wouldn't do for a proper hydraulic system's pressures, no.

But good enuf to have seepage "mostly" take the path of lesser resistance, reduce the mess. That's all that felt ever did, anyway.

I think the seal is there mostly to stop crap from getting into the apron. The one on the round dial is felt and held in place by washers and a circlip on the cross slide screw, adjacent to the feed gear. Or if you have a taper attachment, on the shaft that goes through the dial assembly with the gear on it, the front part of the telescoping leadscrew. On a square dial there is a seal that is installed in the saddle bore from the front that has the same function. It has a flat rubber seal like a way-wipe, no lip like an oil seal. I never had one out, but it is a seal assembly that is pressed in place.
 
RC, your comment about the seal kept puzzling me, so I finally pulled out my drawings. You are right, there is a seal shown, part 655-2, that my lathe was missing. I don't have time today, but in the next few days I'll pull off my dial and measure the dimensions of where the seal fits on my square dial.


IMG_0955.jpg
 
RC, your comment about the seal kept puzzling me, so I finally pulled out my drawings. You are right, there is a seal shown, part 655-2, that my lathe was missing. I don't have time today, but in the next few days I'll pull off my dial and measure the dimensions of where the seal fits on my square dial.

The seal lives in the saddle and so you never see it. I found out about it some time ago and have what I think is the replacement but have never fit it.
 
Quickest fix could be a "stack" of ignorant 'O' rings outta the assortment kit, if so.

Big one fits the OD, small one the shaft, third - or a not-quite large enough washer, not necessarily metal - trapped between only if need be.

I have lots of felt, so making one that matches the original felt washer is not a problem, but I don’t have any of the proper spring steel circlips and I don’t know of a source for them, except possibly Monarch. McMaster does not have them, and Googling did not turn up a source. I could probably use a different style circlip, but the groove is round in shape not square-bottomed.

The thing I don’t like about using o-rings is that there is nothing to keep them in place when you remove the dial assembly, Not only that, but the gear in the apron that drives the feed sticks up in a way that would dislodge the o-ring when sliding the dial assembly out. I always have a devil of a time removing the cross feed dial assembly on a round dial unless I loosen the apron bolts and drop the apron down 1/4“ or so, because that gear catches on the metal retaining rings on each side of the felt washer.
 
Got home from work early, took the dial out. Wouldn't you know it, there is a seal stuck up in there. I should have been more curious about the burnished ring marking on the end of my dial shaft.

The seal is 9/16 id, 1- 1/8 od.
 
Those yah can fab "works OK" ones pretty fast out of spring wire.

Yes, if you have the right diameter spring wire. Grainger carries lots of bundles of piano wire in various thicknesses, so you could probably find what you needed, but its another case of paying $25 for raw materials to make a $2 part. Another example: after buying some 1/32" and 1/16" rubberized cork sheet material and 15/16" and 1 ½" gasket punches, I'm out $75 just to make the proper sight glass gaskets.
 
Why not use a slitting tool and make the grooves square bottom to use standard snap rings?

I got the sight glass gaskets from Monarch...
 
... don’t have any of the proper spring steel circlips and I don’t know of a source for them, except possibly Monarch. McMaster does not have them, and Googling did not turn up a source. I could probably use a different style circlip, but the groove is round in shape not square-bottomed.
...
Even if you could find a source, I would steer away from them. I had one of those damn things on the right end of the leadscrew on my 10EE. It was behind a stamped steel cap that had no provision to remove it.
IMG_2467.jpg

I wound up brute forcing the leadscrew out of the bearing bracket. I tried to put it back on using KD 3151 retaining ring pliers. I ground special tips from Allen keys:
IMG_2508.jpg

But after the damn clip popped off a couple of times and almost killed me I gave up and used a pair of external snap rings instead:
IMG_2511.jpg

I have no idea how the original wire clips were installed.

By the way (and off topic), thanks to the one-way plug, there was no way to lubricate the leadscrew bearing. Here's my solution:
IMG_2516.jpg
(I really wish admin would fix the picture rotation problem.)

Cal
 
I just use "O" rings, two per sight glass. One glass to bezel, the other, glass to casting. For the HS spindle bearing sights - which are also the drains - it makes draining easier as they are re-usable and do not (so far) glue themselves to anything.

Picked them out of one of the hangs-on-the-wall 'O' ring assortment boxes - didn't take note of the size.

Spring wire I have came from a clock and watch supply house, bunch of six-inchers blued HCS, all sorts of diameter in a pouch. Sold as "clock steel".

Yeah, but... I like the cork gaskets. O-rings just aren’t right. GREAT source for spring wire. I will get some.
 
I have no idea how the original wire clips were installed.

I don’t know either, but I have a guess that they were driven on with a hammer and some type of punch. The end of the shaft has a slight radius if it hasn’t been bunged up by generations of ham-fisted repairmen, which is the usual situation. So if you seat the ring on the end of the shaft and hit it with a large punch, it will force the ring onto the shaft. I use a vise to install the rings when I am doing bed bearings, I just put the ring at the end of the shaft and tighten the vise and it goes right on. That only works for the rear bearings. The front ones sometimes can be pressed on with a c-clamp, but I usually use a small screwdriver and lever the back of the ring on, holding the tips in the groove.

I would like to know what tool they used to remove the rings. I use a small screwdriver (or a pair of them) and work the ring off, but it damages the groove a bit. Usually the ring goes flying and I end up spending an hour looking for it.
 
My 1956 had those same wire clips holding on the 4 bearings that roll underneath the ways. I pried them of with a screwdriver, boogering up the grooves in the process. I had never seen clips like those. I tried to reuse them for authenticity, but gave up and loctited the bearings on the shafts.

Cal, my leadscrew had a regular snap ring, but on reassembly I didn't bother using it. It didn't serve any purpose since the leadscrew has to be able to expand and cpntract slightly in the bearing.
 
...

Cal, my leadscrew had a regular snap ring, but on reassembly I didn't bother using it. It didn't serve any purpose since the leadscrew has to be able to expand and cpntract slightly in the bearing.
I don't see any need for it either. I also haven't heard from anyone else who had a wire C-clip on their leadscrew. I could be that someone on third shift put one on when it wasn't supposed to be there.

Cal
 
Seen plenty. Harbour 'bout forty-leben type of tools to manipulate the boogers, grab any I don't already have when I spot 'em and toss 'em in the stash. Well.. usually under the same ROOF somewhere or other, anyway! I did say "toss"?

Then use wore-out screwddrivers like everybody else... 'coz it's too much like work to hunt-up what fits and play with the interchageable tips!

:(

But yah got my curiosity up, present-day goods, as to the clips theyselves:

Wire Snap Rings | Wire Rings | Arcon Ring

Several more out there, UK, Poland, China, etc. still making trouble... 'er.. I mean: "spring wire clips", stock and custom.

Nice find. I get the feeling they don't sell to Monarch 10EE restorers... Maybe in quantity 1000, since they give the weight per 1000. Need to find a source that sells in small quantity.
 
Every round dial I have had apart has a retaining ring on the leadscrew. The feed rod is a loose fit on the interior of the bearing, it is designed to float in the bore. In fact the bearing is locked in place, the front and rear retainers are locked in place with setscrews, unlike the leadscrew bearing.

These bearings are intended to be slip fit in the casting at the end of the bed (there is a clearance, very small, maybe .0001"), so maybe the retaining ring is designed to hold the bearing on the leadscrew, but the bearing will take its place in the casting bore as necessary. I would not leave out the retaining ring.
 








 
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