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Drug home a Tug 40 from the scrapyard

Doug W

Hot Rolled
Joined
Sep 22, 2003
Location
Pacific NW
Been looking for a better, bigger lathe and found a Toolmex, 1990 Andrychow Tug 40, 17.5" tool room lathe at the scrapyard.
Surprisingly 'looks' in pretty good condition.
Rare to see any usable manual machines at the scrapyard. So this was a find.

Whomever scrapped it removed the cross feed dial, housing and short shaft and the small gear that is driven by the power cross feed. So I have to find or make those.

Acquired a bit of scrapyard rash. Ouch! The chip tray, feed engagement shaft are bent and part of the cast iron coolant drain on the foot is chipped off. All should be easy fixes.

It wasn't there long and any rust rubs off with kroil and scotchbright leaving only faint stains on the ways.
The bed is flame hardened on these with no signs of crashes or abuse.

Tailstock was there, and so was a taper attachment (sweet) otherwise zero tooling.

Pisser was I was at the yard a couple of weeks ago and saw a large foreign looking steady rest on a pallet. Suspected Asian. Thought about buying it but not knowing what it fit I passed.
NOW the lathe showed up, that steady was for this Tug..... long gone to the Chinese smelters.. I looked around but it is gone, darn.

5100lbs and $800 on the trailer and down the road.
A screaming deal in these parts of delusional $4000 rusted and crusted yard art. lol
Metal Lathe - heavy equipment - by owner - sale

Unfortunately I won't have time to work on or evaluate it, too many other projects to get out of the way 1st.
Just going to get it out of the weather and slobber marine grease on it.

Here is the specs.
http://manuals.chudov.com/toolmex-andrychow-brochure.pdf

As a bonus, it has the readable cast aluminum raised number speed and feed charts, not the magically disappearing printed ink version on a flat sheet of aluminum.

Hopefully it doesn't have anything mortally wrong with it, if it does I guess I could part it out.
 
Ray I think that is just a threading dial, unfortunately it was made with a sheet aluminum chart (the keypad looking thing with the famous polish magic joke ink that disappears so nothing is legible on it.
 
I ran one of these for years at my old job. They are great lathes and the only problem I remember about it is the key on the main shaft had galled making it very difficult to shift from high to low range. It was an easy fix so maybe that's why this one was sent down the tube.
Congrats.
 
Thanks Mark.

So encrusted in 30 years of oil, chips and gunk I hauled it down to the car wash.
That got 95% of the nastiest stuff off and then I tore into the saddle, taper attachment and tailstock. Wanted to get the water out.

All looks in pretty good shape, can definitely see wear on the saddle.
Man was it dirty and packed with chips under the cross slide.
Maybe that is why someone took the cross feed dial assembly out, to fix it and never made it any further??
Then lost the parts.

Someone managed to get a piece of 3/4" square stock by 6" long jammed between the carriage and the lathe bed. Fished it out and it actually didn't seem like it caused any damage. Probably been rattling around in there for decades. lol

Pulled the headstock cover and took a peep. Whomever dropped it off at the scrapyard drained all the oils.
Everything looks fantastic in there. No chipped or chewed gears or dogs.
Gears slide back and forth w/o effort.

Going to take off the carriage, feed shaft, engagement shaft and lead screw tomorrow if the weather is nice.
 
Ray I think that is just a threading dial, unfortunately it was made with a sheet aluminum chart (the keypad looking thing with the famous polish magic joke ink that disappears so nothing is legible on it.

It's quite the fancy threading dial. Its makes it possible to use the half-nut on both English and Metric threads.
 
Put in a late night cleaning up the compound and cross slide.
Appears that this lathe suffered from lack of cleaning, the taper attachment was completely packed and encrusted with swarf, coagulated coolant, and gunk.
All of which was accessible with a shop vac before it fused into a cemented blob. I guess someone didn't have a shop vac, or care.

Not sure how because it is well shielded but even up underneath the cross slide was packed with junk, that made the feed nut plow through and compact all those chips to travel which is maybe why someone took out the cross slide assembly?

The cross slide has oil ports on the top to inject oil into the ways but those ports weren't even visible under the crust, so it couldn't have been oiled. Plus the ports were clogged up with crud.

Someone also looks like they made a ill fitting tapered gib for the compound.
It doesn't slide back in far enough in so the gib adjusting screw barely engages.
Poor contact too because the gib is either jammed or too loose.
It is also crudely made compared to the cross slide gib, so I don't think it was OEM.

Appears the solution was to put a cheater tool between the compound's two finger handles for more leverage and reef on it, bending those handles and wearing out the feed screw and nut.
So I have to refit, buy or make a gib, nut and feed screw for the compound.

So far it looks like anywhere swarf and coolant could get, it did and wasn't removed unfortunately creating a lot of unneeded wear.
Whereas areas like the headstock where chips couldn't get into look like new.

Think my plan is to rewire from 460v to 230v, refill all the oil sumps, get the machine turning and see (hear) if I find any mechanical issues with the drivetrain.
Get to the bottom of the damage, make a list before I start repairing the saddle, slide, compound and scrap yard damage.
Or make the call to Toolmex and find out what parts are available and cost.
 
Well I have asked in the General section with no results.

Any Tug owners here that know which oil and how much to put in the headstock and feed box?

Getting close to powering it up and checking for gearing/bearing issues.
But looking into both gearboxes I think all should be good.
 
Pulled the motor out enough to switch it from 460v to 230v. Bearings felt terrible, no big deal to change that.
Then I discovered the leads out of the EMA Tamal motor were solid wire (never seen that) and much of the insulation had crumbled away. And where it hadn't touching it made it likewise.


B1y5irJ.jpg



Somewhat surprised that a 30 year old motor's insulation would fail.
My WW2 Van Norman's wiring it still in great shape.

Maybe it is a European thing?
My Stihl 056 Super chainsaw's wiring was all crumbly too.
The insulation has the look and flexibility of old, stale licorice found down in the seat cushions.
 
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When I was a Volvo mechanic in the mid 90s we frequently had to replace entire wiring harnesses due to the crumbly insulation you describe. Was told they had switched to a more eco friendly process and it was a disaster.
 
When I was a Volvo mechanic in the mid 90s we frequently had to replace entire wiring harnesses due to the crumbly insulation you describe. Was told they had switched to a more eco friendly process and it was a disaster.

Possibly soy bean based insulation instead of petrochemical?

They use soy based wiring insulation on late model cars, living out in the country the field mice eat it like corn on the cob.

My neighbor spent $$$thousands replacing the wiring harness on her new, but quickly chewed up Subaru.
 
The list of issues grows.....

Missing crossfeed handle/dial/shaft.
Burred up apron shafts.
A few small off the shelf ball and thrust bearings, seals for the apron and leadscrew/feedscrew support.
New compound feedscrew/nut and gib.
Straighten motor engagement shaft.
Fab and braze chip gutter missing chunk.
Straighten out chip pan.
Make 4 missing flat cover plates.
Replace 7.5 hp 3 phase motor with crumbly wiring.

Never a good sign when I see a monkey has 'adjusted' a spanner nut with a punch and hammer.

4SiMp9C.jpg


That suspicious handiwork led me to remove the feedscrew clutch assembly, they didn't get all the clutches back in the slot and chewed one clutch disc and hub up a bit. Some guys should not be allowed to pick up a Fisher Price screwdriver.

Looked the headstock over very closely last night, noticed the monkey, punch and hammer had been in there too adjusting the spindle thrust bearings.

zKBsj32.jpg


Mopped out the bottom of the headstock sump and found 3 small pieces of what appear to be the spindle thrust bearing cage.
So that bearing must have died and been replaced.
Makes me wonder about the preload and condition of the spindle bearings

Gears, shafts and all look great.

oLAtkFq.jpg


The paint and body filler below are in terrible condition. Chunks falling off everywhere. The pressure washer peeled more off chunks as does even compressed air.
Afraid everything would need to be stripped to bare metal to reach something sound for painting.

Then there is the ways.
Lack of lubrication and neglect has taken a toll.
Really the bed should be reground and all that entails.

Maybe there was a reason it was dumped at the scrapyard? lol

Plus no tooling.

Going to have to think about if I want a expensive multi year project or part it out.
Hmmmmm ????
 
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Well, Toolmex told me about 1/2 of the missing cross slide parts were unavailable and the parts they could get were pretty expensive.

So I started hunting for a parts lathe.
Found a dead 1980 Tug 40 that ways are in much better shape than mine, plus it came with the factory manuals,3 jaw, 4 jaw, QK change toolpost and DRO.
A 3,200 mile adventure but I got the parts lathe home.

So now I have 2 TUG 40 lathes and lots of spare parts.
Going to start selling off all the parts I don't need, which are almost a entire lathe.

Project is moving forward.
 
Well, Toolmex told me about 1/2 of the missing cross slide parts were unavailable and the parts they could get were pretty expensive.

So I started hunting for a parts lathe.
Found a dead 1980 Tug 40 that ways are in much better shape than mine, plus it came with the factory manuals,3 jaw, 4 jaw, QK change toolpost and DRO.
A 3,200 mile adventure but I got the parts lathe home.

So now I have 2 TUG 40 lathes and lots of spare parts.
Going to start selling off all the parts I don't need, which are almost a entire lathe.

Project is moving forward.

" Who Dares Wins " as we say over here.

Regards Tyrone.
 
I tore into my motor with the bad leads, replaced them, new bearings, tested, painted and it is ready to be put back in service.
Victory! Replacing Motor Leads

One of the issues the dead parts lathe had is the motor died (I suspect shorted crumbly leads), then the owner tossed or lost the motor, pulley, bolts etc.... then he died.
The widow, a very nice woman is left to clean up his multiple, monstrous messes of disassembled, half completed projects and rusting yard art machines under rotted away blue tarps.

I have seen this story more than once.
 
Opened up one feed box and disassembled the other, I am shocked at how both feed box innards are it such excellent shape.

Gears, shaft and forks have hardly any wear on 30 and 40 year old machines!
Bearings are all good.

I am really impressed how stoutly built these TUGs are.

Most of the bearings are marked Poland and a couple are marked USSR, ah the old days... lol

DLKMcbf.jpg

2JaX5Og.jpg

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Doug I have a TUG 40 & was wondering if you can tell me how to get the feed screw off & engagement shaft I have a leaking carriage & loose parts in the bottom
 
Possibly soy bean based insulation instead of petrochemical?

They use soy based wiring insulation on late model cars, living out in the country the field mice eat it like corn on the cob.

My neighbor spent $$$thousands replacing the wiring harness on her new, but quickly chewed up Subaru.

I own a 2002 WRX and a 2019 WRX.

This makes me feel “great” inside lol
 








 
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