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Headstock step pulley.. (Oil or Grease)

Bellaru433

Aluminum
Joined
Jun 8, 2017
Im restoring my 1947 South Bend Heavy 10 and I see that others are pumping the headstock step pulley with grease rather than oil.. they are doing the same thing with the back gears.. pulling the oil plug and adapting a grease fitting on there pumping it full of grease… is this correct…???
 
I think the back gears is fine for oil or grease, the internal containment area is not too large, and can work either way.

When I built my first 16" I used grease. At some point I'll probably change that. The interior cavity is large and if the back gears are not used for a while it has to churn and work a little bit to free up nice.

I really don't like oil though either. Besides what happens to fall on shaft, the rest of oil will just sit in the cavity not lubing anything. Or if you fill it a lot it will sling all over the place.

If I get around to a redo, I think I would drill my own oil passage directly to the bearing. Then I could give it a shot of oil and know oil was between bearing and shaft. To do that, I'm thinking drilling through on smallest pulley to bearing. Thread the hole for a flush pipe plug, or a ball oiler.
 
oil both. You'll part fill the cavity and the oil will slosh around finding it's way to and then out of the journals. Think of it as both a lubricant and a flush. Much harder to do that with grease and there have been plenty of reports of people having their bullgear/ spindle sheeve seize due to excess heat created by the grease/ lack of direct lubrication.
 
Do NOT use grease. The grease that SB specified is NO LONGER AVAILABLE! So use only "Type C" oil for both the back gears and the spindle pulleys. It's messy, but at least you're guaranteed to keep both surfaces lubricated.
 
How many times do we have to discuss the fact that grease attracts and holds onto dirt and metal chips. You do not want dirt and metal chips in or near the moving parts of your lathe. Grease is for you tractor or your front end loader, not for your South Bend! These lathes were designed to be oil lubricated.
 
How many times do we have to discuss the fact that grease attracts and holds onto dirt and metal chips. You do not want dirt and metal chips in or near the moving parts of your lathe. Grease is for you tractor or your front end loader, not for your South Bend! These lathes were designed to be oil lubricated.

All this is true, but we're discussing interior sections of the lathe - where no swarf dare go!
 
Do NOT use grease. ....

True story: the 10L I bought from the late dave sobel's shop had been worked on by a relatively inexperienced helper there. The helper did indeed pump the fitting on the cone pulley full of long-fiber wheel grease. Now dave always insisted the purchasers of his machines see the machine under power, which I did before paying. Neither of us thought to check back gear operation!

Cone pulley was locked HARD on the spindle, it took repeated applications of ATF to thin the grease out and flush it away. These days, that's what the fitting gets there: ATF.
 
I went with South Bend's recommendation for both my SB lathes. The 15" is an older single tumbler model and the cone pulley is stamped "Oil" on the lubrication hole. My newer, probably ~1960's 13" is stamped "Grease" on the lubrication hole. South Bend recommends Roy Dean #DE112 Teflon grease for the 13", which is still available, but I used Super Lube synthetic. I seldom use back gear because I just slow down my VFD most of the time. It's working fine. I use open gear lube on all the open gears on both lathes, my shaper, etc..

Ted
 
Here's the South Bend Lube Chart for my 13" lathe. Is your cone pulley stamped? If so, I would follow what is says if it was me. Seems like the engineers and SB should know best.

TedSouth Bend 13 Lube Chart.jpg
 
Seems like the engineers and SB should know best.

TedView attachment 330839

On some, or even many things i might agree. But the cone pully lube was a straight up terrible design.

For perspective, imagine leaving spindle bearing dry, but you're going to dump oil on the chuck and hope oil gets to spindle bearings.

That sums up how the interior of cone pully to spindle bearing is lubed. Oil is NOT going to slosh around. Centrifical force will keep oil to outer side of cavity, away from the bearing.

To really lube it right you have to inject or otherwise force oil into that long bearing surface. As designed, there is no good or easy way to do that.

Not really an issue for me as i don't often use back gears. But drilling an oil passage directly to center of bearing, where you could lube prior to running would be an upgrade imo.
 
To really lube it right you have to inject or otherwise force oil into that long bearing surface. As designed, there is no good or easy way to do that.
....

That's what the setscrew is for in the step of the cone pulley. The old ones marked "OIL" and when I apply my pump oil gun to that (after removing the screw of course) and give it a few pumps, the oil is injected into the bearing space between the spindle OD and the pulley ID.
 
That's what the setscrew is for in the step of the cone pulley. The old ones marked "OIL" and when I apply my pump oil gun to that (after removing the screw of course) and give it a few pumps, the oil is injected into the bearing space between the spindle OD and the pulley ID.

Could be an update, could be a different style, i couldn't honestly say ive seen every cone pully set up for every South Bend.

Those I have seen dont do that. The oil drops into a cavity, or void, not the actual mating bearing surfaces.
 
Not trying to start an argument, because everyone has an owner's right to do whatever they want with their own equipment and I don't really care, but solely sharing information.

Here's a picture out of "A Guide to Renovating the South Bend Lathe" by Ilion Industries. This is another resource that states to use grease on the newer models that are stamped "Grease". Note that I use oil on my older South Bend that has "Oil" stamped on the cone pulley. My newer 13" has "Grease" stamped on it.

This shows the way to properly force grease where it belongs; into the bearing surfaces.

Ted

IMG_0108.jpg
 
Not trying to start an argument, because everyone has an owner's right to do whatever they want with their own equipment and I don't really care, but solely sharing information.

Here's a picture out of "A Guide to Renovating the South Bend Lathe" by Ilion Industries. This is another resource that states to use grease on the newer models that are stamped "Grease". Note that I use oil on my older South Bend that has "Oil" stamped on the cone pulley. My newer 13" has "Grease" stamped on it.

This shows the way to properly force grease where it belongs; into the bearing surfaces.

Ted

View attachment 330845

I agree with the sentiment, and why I opted to grease my first build. Grease would totally fill the cavity and not run out like oil. And a pump or two ever now and then will lube the thrust bearings as someone mentioned.

One point SLK001 mentioned though, the original grease was teflon based. I've not personally seen it, but I assume thinner than the general purpose grease.

Having used grease, and had not run back gears in a year or more. . .when I first hit power button I could hear motor working hard for a minute or so till the grease softened up, and there was a distinct grease odor. I didn't particularly like that. Similar to Jim Rosen, I pumped some atf in to thin it out.

And that may not be a terrible solution, create our own grease mixture. Something like 25% atf with 75% grease. Thinner consistency, but not drooling all over like oil would if you filled the cavity.
 
Have not had my cone pulley off the spindle in some time, but what cavity is inside? I do know that if you use that grease fitting and pump in wheel bearing grease, that cone's not gonna spin!
 
I've used both and still have a bottle of the Roy Dean stuff in the maintenance locker. Our back gear did seize once a few years back with no lasting damage (after it was taken apart and lubed). That was while using oil, but not often enough. The Roy Dean "grease" is far from your generic axle grease and is more like a hand lotion consistency. The advantage of the grease is that it will lube longer whereas oil needs to be done with more frequency. Our Heavy 10 isn't used daily, but is in a professional shop where taking five minutes to un-screw the lube port and fill the back gear every day can get bothersome and overlooked.

If you can't get the SB specified Roy Dean grease, I'd go with an NLGI#0 grade of grease like Lubriplate 105 or Kluber Isoflex. Very thin, but stays put and harder to seep/fling out. Stay away from white lithium grease! We used to use it on a lot of stuff but found that it hardens over time, plugging up passages and leading to zero lubrication.
 








 
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