Huron update (some rehashing the description from further up). Getting pretty good results
. So the story to date. The main issue was that components are siezed. The machine has a great one-shot oiler (I must have pumps a half quart of oil). I got the slides all to move by first pulling the gibs - they were stuck, I've use a lot of penetrating oil, the gibs are fitted with a 12mm bolt, so I could put a decent pull plus some hammering and they would then move. Once the gibs were out I could get things to move. I pulled the table slide right off, the over arm off and left the Z-axis attached - but lot traveled and cleaned it numerous times (got the rear travel plates and the front leg completely cleaned, the actual Z slide left 1" that I could not get to - since it is a 21" knee but there is only 20" of travel). The manual emphasis leaving the elevating ball screw intact - the table is somehow conterweighted (with the table off it takes more effort to lower the knee than raise it - with the table on the effort is the same up and down.
The one shot oiler is quite cool, as every lube point gets its' own line - and each one is fed by a spring loaded metering valve (one pump to ~30 locations and one point can't hog all the oil). It is like a bowl of sphagetti - a few lines were plugged and getting to them involved some serious contortions. The head was siezed, with a mixture of grease, water and rust. The big universal head is quite the marvel inside - the gears survived reasonably well (some damage, but they are very robust), the main spindle bearings are marked up - sort of a crime, but I just cleaned and relubricated them and everything turns nice. A replacement set of spindle bearings (two bearings), if still available would be prohibitive at a 90% discount - the last set the dealer sold was $8000USD in 2014 (they are about the size of a base ball). If everything else checks out, and the spindle bearings could be modified to something more available (the ID/OD are easy to match, there would need some different spacer rings). Spindle bearing mods feels like a bit of a "hack" - but I'm not paying $10,000+CAD - so it would be modify or scrap it. For now I'll just run them, cleaned up, well lubed and not sweat it.
The main motor was scary. It would not turn at all. When I finally got it cracked open, about a quart of water drained out. The lower half of the air gap was plugged solid with rust. I scrubbed it with varsol, then hot soapy water, then blew it dry, more boiling hot water, more blowing dry, then dried with a hot air gun and wrapped in a blanket for ~6 hours (held at 140°F). I was able to borrow a megger and got ~65k ohms
. So, I reinforced the kitchen oven and baked the stator like a turkey. It took about 10 hours to get it up to 215°F - held it for 2 hours and let it cool overnight. I no longer had access to the megger - so I just put power to it
. The motor sounds great (new bearings of course).
The electrics were pretty ugly - there are 6 contactors and dual controls (front and side operating stations) = = = many wires. I documents the wiring with pictures & sketches, most of the wire labels were still in place. I pulled the contactors one at a time, and tested the result after each one - again all good.
So things seemed to be going okay. The X-axis hand wheel had a lot of axial play, a lot of back lash and the dial were stuck. Getting it out was a trick (again, so much on this is just siezed up) - anyway, I re-did the thrust washer spacer and freed up the dials. Next, the main spindle clutch/brake were noisy - so the motor came back off. The company that made the clutch went out of business in the early '70s. I found a place that has clutch plates, but not in my price range. The clutch and brake are very similar - the brake plates looked great, so I swapped the brake plates into the clutch position and did some clean up of some plates on the surface grinder (and new bearings in the clutch - one of which was quite rough). All back together - and the noise is the same as before! Oh well, run it as there did not seem to be any obvious issues.
Miracles do happen occastionally - still going okay. There are still quite a few small issues (stuck dials, couple broken dials, power feeds that don't trip properly), but hey - I'm ready to try making some chips.
Only problem - I'm back to working on the Bergonzi radial drill (if I'd put even half the hours that the "Beast" go into the drill it would likely be done) - I'm not even sure I have all the pieces (came to me as a few big chunks and half a dozen cardboard boxes of metal!).
Enjoy. David