I purchased a 1957 Clausing Colchester 13x36 gearhead lathe. My main concern was spindle runout and alignment. I thought that hardened ways would protect the ways.I did not pay enough attention to the head drive gears; bad on me for not checking everything out. The long and the short is there is considerable gear noise.
First the lathe has a 2 speed motor. On high the drive train is noisy throughout, much worse on high speed. The noise is sufficiently bad I would not operate the lathe in this mode. Second on low speed it is noisy but not past the point where I would operate it.
I have changed the oil and replace it with ISO 43 oil I removed the cover an inspected the noise source. The drive has three shafts, the drive shaft, the idler shaft, and the spindle shaft. There are two gear pairs from the idler shaft to the spindle shaft, controlled by a gear selector lever on the front of the housing. Both of these positions cause the majority of the noise. (If I place that selector in neutral and run the two drive shaft selectors through the four positions the machine is quite quiet. The noise is not coming from the driven shaft to idler shaft gears.)
There are posts on noise from these machines. Is there a reason it would make more noise across all speed when the motor is in high? This leads me to speculate the noise is somehow 'referred'; this is a leap but I do not want to miss anything.
If it is the gears does anyone happen to know of anyone parting out a machine that might have better gears?
First the lathe has a 2 speed motor. On high the drive train is noisy throughout, much worse on high speed. The noise is sufficiently bad I would not operate the lathe in this mode. Second on low speed it is noisy but not past the point where I would operate it.
I have changed the oil and replace it with ISO 43 oil I removed the cover an inspected the noise source. The drive has three shafts, the drive shaft, the idler shaft, and the spindle shaft. There are two gear pairs from the idler shaft to the spindle shaft, controlled by a gear selector lever on the front of the housing. Both of these positions cause the majority of the noise. (If I place that selector in neutral and run the two drive shaft selectors through the four positions the machine is quite quiet. The noise is not coming from the driven shaft to idler shaft gears.)
There are posts on noise from these machines. Is there a reason it would make more noise across all speed when the motor is in high? This leads me to speculate the noise is somehow 'referred'; this is a leap but I do not want to miss anything.
If it is the gears does anyone happen to know of anyone parting out a machine that might have better gears?