ARC-170's Craftsman 101.07403 lathe restoration thread

[WCraig]

30. The MOLO unfortunately does not mention back gear lash [...]

Merely clicking the "Like" button is really insufficient for expressing how much I appreciate your clear and detailed instructions on all manner of Atlas-related questions. So very well done!

If you ever find yourself on the west side of Toronto, I would be most happy to supply an adult beverage of your choosing. Or two!

Thanks,

Craig

 

[wa5cab]

Thanks. About three lifetimes ago, I used to go to Scarborough fairly frequently. But times change.

 

[ARC-170]

29. I cleaned it and put it back on. I'm waiting to oil everything at once.

30. Thanks. I'll re-install them and get them adjusted.

I agree with Craig ("WCraig"); thanks doesn't begin to show my appreciation. On all the other forums for my other hobbies/obsessions, I get about 20 experts giving my questionable advice and one or two with the answer I'm looking for. Robert, you're the only one who responds on this forum (does no one else have anything to say?!) and your advice is detailed and very helpful.

My hope and purpose for doing this thread is to help others. I don't normally toot my own horn ("Hey, look at me restore my lathe!"), but it occurred to me that this would help others doing the same thing. I read a lot of these myself and find them helpful. Thought I'd return the favor.

MOTOR
31. I cleaned up the motor. I found a bunch of bases for it.

Upper right and lower right don't fit anything. Anyone know what they might fit?
Lower left appears to be a correct one, but the motor would sit a bit lower and it's not quite wide enough for the existing motor. I'll keep this one.

Motor label:

Here's the writing:
660017
PT. NO. 84973
MODEL G-553
SKC49PR31CS
HP: 1/2 E25382
RPM: 1725/1140/850
V: 115
CY: 60
A: 82/75/72
CODE: J AKR52
PC: 8810M
RISE: 70 degrees C. CONT.
DATE: 404

It appears to be a 3-speed motor (there are several stickers on it that have that written on it). When I got it, the homemade switch plate had "forward", "reverse" and "stop" labelled.

I plan on getting a linkbelt so I can change it easily.

There are 4 tabs to connect wires to:
GY-P
W
BU
OR

I need to get a new cord and plug.
What goes where? The ground wire screws into the motor housing, so that's one wire solved. When I got the lathe, the motor ran, but I needed to unplug it to make the whole assembly lighter so we could load and unload it. I didn't note what wires went where at the time.
This appears to be a replacement motor, so I'm not sure a wiring diagram would help. I just need to know what the letters above mean (colors?) and then I think I can connect it to a switch.
I have the old wires and might be able to solve the puzzle.
Also, if it's a 3-speed motor I'd like to wire it as such; it was wired for forward, reverse and stop when I got it, so using the existing wires as a guide might not help.
How much damage can I do hooking it up wrong?

 

[wa5cab]

Motor label:

There are 4 tabs to connect wires to:
GY-P
W
BU
OR

I've no idea what the -P if for. The rest of it is color abbreviations - GY = Gray, W = White, BU = Blue and OR = Orange. As to what they mean, your guess is as good as mine. I know of no generally accepted color code for motor wiring. If those are the only places to connect wires and if when received, you were able to run and reverse the motor, then two of the tabs go to the run windings and the other two go to the start circuit. To ID what's what, you need an ohmmeter, preferably an analog one. To ID the function of each tab, connect the ohmmeter to one terminal and touch the other probe to the other three one at a time. You should get needle movement on only one of the three. If the ohmmeter reading is steady and showing something near to but not quite zero, those two are the run windings. If the needle jumps toward zero but immediately starts to climb back toward infinity, those are the start winding. Confirm that the other two show the opposite response to the first two.

And, with only four terminals, it is not a three-speed motor.

 

[ARC-170]

31. I thought it was a 3-speed motor because it has 3 RPM speeds on the label: 1725/1140/850. In any case, I got it hooked up and working on the first try! I made a lucky guess based on the wear marks on the spades and the colors of the wires. It is hooked up for two speeds, not reverse and forward as I originally thought. Here is the wiring diagram.


Here's a close-up of the connections on the motor. It looks like there are 2 connectors for white (W1, W2). Maybe the 5th connector for the 3rd speed? W1 has a pool of solder and no spade. W2 has a spade.


I could not find much of anything on the internet on this particular motor. I searched for the part number, model number, the GE website (I read that it might be a GE motor), 1/2 HP motors in general, etc. All the wiring diagrams assumed you knew what each of the leads was for, and there is no standard. I just assumed white was the neutral and I found in my research that the colored ones were usually for the various speeds. The ground looked like it had been screwed into, so I just used that hole.

WIRING HARNESS
32. I think I will make a wiring harness. I need one of the 3 wires from the power cord to be longer than the other two, then a set of two wires from the switch back to the motor. I can use the correct colors as well. This is the existing set-up. It's just 3-wire 16 gage wiring. The wires that are not used are just cut off.

 

[ARC-170]

BRACKET REPAIR
33. The bracket that holds the belt guard in place (#L6-721) has a broken attachment point. I can't weld, so I thought I'd fix it as shown. I'd use epoxy in the joint itself (maybe try it without it first), drill and tap some holes for small screws, then fabricate a small metal strip. Thoughts?

I might be able to take it to work and ask if the welding teacher can fix it, but he's really busy and takes forever (took him 6 months for the last one).

 

[TonimusMaximus]

I would grind the mating surfaces kinda flat, drill and tap for a stud and just screw the two pieces together. Can't really tell from the picture how much meat is there.

 

[wa5cab]

33. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and pay someone who knows what they are doing to fix something. That is what I would do .

 

[wa5cab]

33. Well, mystery solved. It isn't reversible. When you said earlier that some of the writing indicated it was a multi-speed motor, I thought you were talking about hand writing. And knowing that there is no good reason to put a multi-speed motor on an Atlas lathe that already has 16 speeds, I made a false assumption. Sorry.

However, I would consider #16 AWG to be too light for the application. And would replace it all with 14 AWG

 

[ARC-170]

WIRING HARNESS REVISITED
I also posted this particular question in the electrical section. Let me know if that's not okay. I thought it might attract more attention there. I also wanted to put it here for reference.

32. As I was looking at this more closely before putting a new power cord and wiring (#16 AWG) on the lathe, I noticed the wiring from the power cord just hooks up directly to the contacts on the motor. It just hangs there, putting a constant strain on the contacts. It appears the plate that covered this area is missing. I'd like to wire this up so the power cord comes in to some sort of junction box/terminal box, then out to the motor and switch.

In the image, the wire with the red terminal and the white wire at top are from the power cord. The wire hooked to the twist connect is to the switch and the other wires come from the switch. The original owner just used power cord for all the wires, so there are extra wires.



I thought I might place a household j-box under the motor. I can't just make a plate to cover the wiring area on the motor because the wires and connectors stick up too far.

Does anyone have pictures of what their machine's electrical hook-ups look like I could use for reference? Any suggestions as to what a solution could be? Thanks!

BRACKET REPAIR
33. Looks like I'll need to find a welder. I only hesitate because it's such a small job. I'm going to try and take the part to the industrial area of town and see if cash will convince someone to help me out.