Phase I included:
- Remove lathe from cabinet
- Remove under drive and electrics from cabinet
- Strip, clean and paint cabinet
- Disassembel, strip, clean and paint under drive components
- Reassemble under drive (replace bearing on cone pulley shaft)
- Reinstall under drive
- Blow up old motor (okay that wasn't planned - got some paint into the motor and it just won't work.
- Install new motor, rewire everything using flexible conduit that is coated in pvc for sealing against oil and grease.
- Put it all back together - fit door to catches properly, assemble drawer locks
- Retouch paint where needed.
Phase II will entail the following:
- Disassemble the lathe into major units
- Disassemble, clean and strip the head stock, gear box, carriage, bed and other major castings.
- Paint these major pieces
Yesterday I started to disassemble the main lathe components. I got my sons to help me get it back up on the bench using the motor hoist then I began to disassemble major components off of it. I began by removing the carriage, then the headstock and associated covers and finally the gear box and lead screw. While I had the leadscrew bearing off the end I supported the leadscrew with several pieces of 2x4 under it so that when I slid the carriage off the end that I didn't wind up bending or putting stress on the lead screw.
Here is the lathe just after putting it on the bench before starting disassembly. Most of the pictures I took during disassembly were images about position of various pieces and screws etc.
Here are a few shots of the major pieces as they came off the lathe:
With the major assemblies set aside I proceeded to begin to strip the paint from the bed and various head stock covers using Citris Strip.
After a lot of elbow grease and several coats of Citris Strip and visits with the pressure washer over the last two nights. I now have the bed, bed feet, headstock castings, gear box assembly, all the covers and other odds and ends stripped clean. Here are some pictures of the stripped and cleaned parts. I've coated the ways in WD 40 to prevent rust and did similar things with the gear box and head stock casting - especially in bearing journals and scraped surfaces.
Here is the headstock casting and journal caps as well as the spindle. I don't currently own a gear puller so I can't take the gear off the end of the spindle in order to fully disassemble. I'l lhave to stop a TSC tomorrow after work and get one.
Here is the gear box with 95% of the paint stripped off of it. I removed the plate with the gear chart prior to stripping the paint as I didn't want to lose the paint on that plate. It was a simple process of taking an old 1/4" chisel (bevel side up) and carefully tapping it under the pin to raise it slightly then grabbing the pins with a small pair of side cutters and giving a slight turn. They popped right out. Whole process took about 3 min. Thanks to the guys on the South Bend forum for the technique.
I cleaned the gear box first by soaking overnight in a solution of Purple Power though I'm not certain how much it really helped. Then I covered it in Citris Strip and let it sit for a half hour then blasted it off with the pressure washer. Then more Citris Strip and a second round of presssure washing. Then I spent half an hour sitting with it tipped partially into an ice cream pail with mineral spirits and washed and rewashed the gears with a paint brush. I'm now at a crossroads as I try to figure out whether I really need to fully disassemble the gear box. I'd like to because I want to ensure all the bearing surfaces are clean but I've heard these single tumbler gear boxes can be a nightmare to disassemble and reassemble. Waiting on some advice from the South Bend forum before I proceed.
Here are some of the other parts that have been striped. I have to hit a few with the wire wheel to get rid of the surface rust. You can see some of the parts are aluminum - gear covers. Which really surprised me. I figured they'd all be cast iron.
Well that's it for this post.
