Clausing 111 spindle bearings leaking

[magu]

Hi all, I picked up a lovely clausing 111 (small world, I had the same model as my first lathe) over the summer and only recently started getting to use it. I noticed that almost as soon as I added oil to the spindle bearings (both sides) the oil would run out and the bearings would begin heating up. On examination, the oil was coming out between the spindle itself and the screw in nut/cover so I removed them to look for a botched seal. As shown in the pictures, there is a groove where it seems like a packing or o-ring would go on the spindle, but nothing was there. These grooves are also shown in the manual but are never called out and nothing is shown in them or listed on the bom. Does anyone know what should be there that isn't?

 

[Aukai]

Rope seals maybe?

 

[magu]

Rope seals maybe?

I was thinking that may be. I think it would be a bit old to have rubber o-rings, but I could be wrong.

 

[benmychree]

Lathe spindle bearings seldom use seals because chips and other debris would quickly destroy them, they generally rely on clearance fits or slingers. Perhaps you may have overfilled the oil?

 

[magu]

Lathe spindle bearings seldom use seals because chips and other debris would quickly destroy them, they generally rely on clearance fits or slingers. Perhaps you may have overfilled the oil?

I am certainly open to the idea that I am wrong and there should be nothing. There are two reasons I don't think I have overfilled the bearings:

• Looking at the cross section of the spindle there would be very little oil that would settle below the leak point when not being slung about
• While no mention is made of how much oil to use, mention is made f oil cups at the fill hole (12 o'clock) which I would think would simply drain out.

Again, I could be wrong, this is just my reasoning.

 

[woodchucker]

any chance a felt goes in there? I have round felts that I got when I rebuilt my SB9.. they were in the kit and I needed them for many of the shaftings that had round felts to hold oil on the gears bore.. The shaft had a hole to deliver oil to the felts which were perpendicular to the shaft.
so they were constantly rubbing... could be that felt goes in there.

 

[benmychree]

Antifriction bearings require little oil to function properly, also too much oil can cause overheating.

 

[markba633csi]

Seems that they may have intended a very small amount of heavy oil or light grease, and a little bit of leakage would be acceptable
seeing as how there are no oil cups to fill
-M

 

[magu]

any chance a felt goes in there? I have round felts that I got when I rebuilt my SB9.. they were in the kit and I needed them for many of the shaftings that had round felts to hold oil on the gears bore.. The shaft had a hole to deliver oil to the felts which were perpendicular to the shaft.
so they were constantly rubbing... could be that felt goes in there.

Possibly, I was thinking rope seals, but they're substantiatively the same.

 

[magu]

Antifriction bearings require little oil to function properly, also too much oil can cause overheating.

Perhaps that was part of the problem.

Because I work at home and am easily distracted... I went and loosened the take up nut on the back side of the spindle by about a 1/3 of a turn. It was tight enough that I had to drive it loose with a punch after backing out the setscrew. There had been no detectable spindle movement, after the 1/3 turn it is maybe half a thou so part of the problem may have been too much preload.