Rear Counter Pulley Shaft Issues

Speedy64 · Nov 20, 2015

Hi Gang,

I've hit (what I think) might be a snag with my rebuild on my old 9a.

Everything was going fine until I took the rear horizontal drive unit apart that holds the motor and the counter pulley.

The actual shaft on the drive side (left side if you were looking at the lathe from the front) is scored really badly on both the shaft itself and inside the orifice of the drive unit on the lower end of the ID, and no it isn't the one that has bushings pressed in.

I'm not so super concerned with that inner, lower ID as I am the actual shaft.

MY OCD brain is all over the place and I'm literally losing sleep over this, yes I'm that lunatic.

These are all of the conversations I'm having with myself.

"Leave it alone because that mechanism is only there to drive the pulley on the front spindle so who cares. It will never affect anything your cutting or the tolerances. Just fit one of those large screw in oilers that holds lots of oil or grease the hell out of it and call it a day."

"Somehow get that pin (that does not want to come out) out of the assembly and take the shaft to a local machine shop and have a new one made."

"That's fine but then what do you do about the scoring inside the part of the assembly that it goes through?" Well I'm not that worried about it, but should I be"

"Take some fine Emory cloth and spin the shaft in the cloth until the ground up material is smooth. Yeah but what if I take off too much material, and I create more of a clearance, and the thing flops around in the assembly like an apple in a barrel."

As you can all clearly see, I'm driving myself nuts over this and I don't even know if I should be.

I attached a picture of the offending shaft.

For all of you that have either suffered with this in the past or know how to deal with it, I would really appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks in advance...

P.S., I'm not quite sure how the pictures on the internet look to you but trust me it's gnarly and the grooves are very deep.

garyphansen · Nov 20, 2015

How did it work before you took it apart? Mine might look like that, but I wouldn't know because I never took it apart because it works just fine. If it isn't broke don't fix it. How does the cast iron bore it fits into look? Chances are you could ream them out if need be and make a new shaft from a better steel than the original or install bronze bushings over your original shaft in the new larger bores. Just be sure to keep oil in it, that scoring was caused by lack of oil.

Speedy64 · Nov 20, 2015

garyphansen said:
How did it work before you took it apart? Mine might look like that, but I wouldn't know because I never took it apart because it works just fine. If it isn't broke don't fix it. How does the cast iron bore it fits into look? Chances are you could ream them out if need be and make a new shaft from a better steel than the original or install bronze bushings over your original shaft in the new larger bores. Just be sure to keep oil in it, that scoring was caused by lack of oil.

She actually ran just fine, and I never noticed any slop of any kind.

There was no binding or squealing or howling of any kind.

How about this:

I'll smooth out the affected area of the shaft that is now rough, and then take a measurement to see what the OD is afterwards.

If the OD of the shaft is substantially less than the ID of the cast iron bore, I'll try to find a bronze bushing to make up for all that extra clearance.

Then I'll drill & tap the existing oiler holes to fit those large "drip oilers" on both sides.

If the clearance is negligible, I'll leave it alone and still fit those large drip oilers to make sure that at the very least, both sides are always getting lubricated. (essentially I would be taking your advice)

Thanks........

Last question, if I did have to get some bronze bushings do you know of a good source for them?

Thanks again......

garyphansen · Nov 20, 2015

Your first sentence tells me you should just put it back together and run it. Don't fix it if it ain't broke! If you decide to make bronzed bushings you can buy cored bronze bars from Emco

Speedy64 · Nov 20, 2015

garyphansen said:
Your first sentence tells me you should just put it back together and run it. Don't fix it if it ain't broke! If you decide to make bronzed bushings you can buy cored bronze bars from Emco

Thanks, I will and we'll see what happens.

Big Gem · Nov 21, 2015

I used to have one so bad that I had to put a strip of phos-bronze in there to keep it from bouncing around when running. It leaked oil so fast I finally started greasing it. Eventually I got a better one with none of those issues. The only difference between the two was the amount of drippings. Both worked equally well as far as the lathe cared.

Speedy64 · Nov 21, 2015

Big Gem said:
I used to have one so bad that I had to put a strip of phos-bronze in there to keep it from bouncing around when running. It leaked oil so fast I finally started greasing it. Eventually I got a better one with none of those issues. The only difference between the two was the amount of drippings. Both worked equally well as far as the lathe cared.

Thanks, this one isn't that bad, and honestly I would have never noticed the scoring had I not ripped everything apart for this rebuild so I don't think I have that much of an issue (for now) but I will keep my eye on it.

If after it's all back together I notice a massive amount of oil consumption or if the cast iron bore is always hot or if it starts to bounce around like a basketball then I'll perform some surgery on it.

Thanks for sharing the story.....

Big Gem · Nov 21, 2015

My heavy 9 has a scored shaft, but not as bad as the one I talked about. I just make it a point to oil the countershaft every time I oil the spindle. I have one of those digital thermometers and I check areas every once in a while. I've never seen more than a couple degrees rise.

The shaft is easy to replace. Getting the new taper pin hole to line up right is, well, tricky. I'm sure there's a really good technique, but I don't know it. If you get off just a thou, you've got a very tight drive pin. If you ever need a standard (the bearing part), they're available on ebay for maybe $30.

Speedy64 · Nov 21, 2015

Big Gem said:
My heavy 9 has a scored shaft, but not as bad as the one I talked about. I just make it a point to oil the countershaft every time I oil the spindle. I have one of those digital thermometers and I check areas every once in a while. I've never seen more than a couple degrees rise.

The shaft is easy to replace. Getting the new taper pin hole to line up right is, well, tricky. I'm sure there's a really good technique, but I don't know it. If you get off just a thou, you've got a very tight drive pin. If you ever need a standard (the bearing part), they're available on ebay for maybe $30.

Thanks for the info, I'll store it away in my mental rolodex......

Yan Wo · Nov 22, 2015

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Really? I should wait until something breaks before doing anything? No preventive maintenance? Why oil anything? It's working fine now. Let's wait until it starts squealing. Etc., etc.

I have never understood this philosophy.

Yan Wo · Nov 22, 2015

My shaft and bearing was much worse, so don't feel too bad.

Speedy64 · Nov 23, 2015

Yan Wo said:
My shaft and bearing was much worse, so don't feel too bad.

View attachment 154922

View attachment 154923

Wow,

Mine isn't that bad yet.

Please tell me what you did about yours, I'd like to know.

Thanks....

Yan Wo · Nov 23, 2015

The shaft damage made it easy to remove the pulley. I filed off most of the ridges then beat the far end of the shaft, forcing the pulley up the shaft -- after I removed the taper pin, of course. With the pulley loose on the shaft, I filed down the pulley end a bit and slid off the pulley. I would like to know why SB thought it necessary to have such a tight fit.

I hand "line bored" the support on the lathe, using several adjustable reamers.

I pressed in two bronze bearings, leaving about 1/4 inch between them. I'll fit a felt wick into the shallow remaining slot. The idea is to have oil between the two bearings.

I bought two new shafts form McMaster-Carr, 1566 case hardened and 1018. I'll start with the 1018 one first and see how it goes. I would like the shaft to wear the bearing, because the bearings are easier to replace.

I haven't yet got it together and tried it. Shaft spins smoothly, however, with no play.

The lathe was under power when I bought it, and being used regularly, so even that extreme amount of abuse wasn't enough to cause a problem. Amazing! I thought the lathe ran very smoothly and quietly.

If your personality allows it (unfortunately mine doesn't) I bet you can use yours like it is, with new felts and regular oiling, for years with no problem.

Good luck!

Jon

Speedy64 · Nov 24, 2015

Yan Wo said:
The shaft damage made it easy to remove the pulley. I filed off most of the ridges then beat the far end of the shaft, forcing the pulley up the shaft -- after I removed the taper pin, of course. With the pulley loose on the shaft, I filed down the pulley end a bit and slid off the pulley. I would like to know why SB thought it necessary to have such a tight fit.

I hand "line bored" the support on the lathe, using several adjustable reamers.

I pressed in two bronze bearings, leaving about 1/4 inch between them. I'll fit a felt wick into the shallow remaining slot. The idea is to have oil between the two bearings.

I bought two new shafts form McMaster-Carr, 1566 case hardened and 1018. I'll start with the 1018 one first and see how it goes. I would like the shaft to wear the bearing, because the bearings are easier to replace.

I haven't yet got it together and tried it. Shaft spins smoothly, however, with no play.

The lathe was under power when I bought it, and being used regularly, so even that extreme amount of abuse wasn't enough to cause a problem. Amazing! I thought the lathe ran very smoothly and quietly.

If your personality allows it (unfortunately mine doesn't) I bet you can use yours like it is, with new felts and regular oiling, for years with no problem.

Good luck!

Jon

Thanks so much for the update.

Sounds like you put a lot of thought into how to fix it and how best to maintain it going forward.

My OCD is pretty bad but I've decided to just lightly, "circumferentially" sand the rough area of the shaft (that isn't as bad as yours was) with some 1200 grit Emory cloth as well as the ID of the iron cast bore for now.

I also thought about putting a slightly larger wick on that side to make up for the miniscule amount of material and to keep some form of pressure on the shaft from oscillating too much.

My lathe ran smooth as well with absolutely no problems, and if I had never ripped everything apart for this re-build, I would have never saw it or noticed.

I know exactly what you mean about the pin & shaft being in so tight. Before I decided to more or less leave it alone, I made an attempt to get the pin out and after bending 4 case hardened steel punches I decided to back off.

Truth be told that damn pin not coming out is what really helped me to make up my mind to just leave it alone for now.

Good luck with your and please post pics of everything when it's done.

Happy Thanksgiving......

Yan Wo · Nov 25, 2015

When I removed my spindle I found the right-hand wick -- which was in poor shape -- was being held down by a piece of wood. It looked like someone in the past had held the wick down with a broom straw (maybe) then broke it getting it out. Anyway, that bearing was getting no oil. Despite that both spindle bearings were in great shape.

Because of the countershaft and spindle problems, I would not be at all comfortable not inspecting everything.

Guess these old lathes are pretty much indestructible, even when abused. Mine should last for at least 1000 years if it's not further abused.

Speedy64 · Nov 25, 2015

Yan Wo said:
When I removed my spindle I found the right-hand wick -- which was in poor shape -- was being held down by a piece of wood. It looked like someone in the past had held the wick down with a broom straw (maybe) then broke it getting it out. Anyway, that bearing was getting no oil. Despite that both spindle bearings were in great shape.

Because of the countershaft and spindle problems, I would not be at all comfortable not inspecting everything.

Guess these old lathes are pretty much indestructible, even when abused. Mine should last for at least 1000 years if it's not further abused.

I know exactly what you mean, as I was ripping mine apart there was a date (I think) stamped into the on/off switch base plate that bolts onto the curved gear-train cover - it's stamped "1943"

The serial number of my lathe is: "37223NAR9" so I'm not sure if in-fact it is a 1943 model or if that number on the base plate is a part number, but for it's age - it's in incredible condition.

None of the gears are worn down, the lead screw is perfect, the main spindle has no wear what-so-ever and all of the other iron cast bores that act as bearing housings are mint.

The ways had some dings just in front of the chuck area the way they all do so I got a "fine" (orange) Norton India stone, and knocked down the high spots.

I absolutely love this lather to death. I know it will never be able to compete with the larger, more modern Logan's, Monarch's or CNC machines that can do everything under the sun but there's something about the simplicity of it that I love.

The fact of knowing how much history it's responsible for, and how many products it must have made over it's lifetime really blows me away.

I know, all corny stuff but that's me.

Have a great day buddy......

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