Broken Hearted... My new to me 1942 VN No.12 Spindle Ring and Pinion shot

[FULLMONTIE]

Bit of long story, but the condensed version is I picked up my Dad's VN 12 that has sat idle with a burned up motor for 25+ years. Disassembled it to the basic components to move from Oklahoma to Texas, cleaned it up, then painted it while torn down. I replaced the burned up motor with a 2HP Rockwell 3 phase motor, and installed a Dayton variable speed motor on the table feed. Lubed everything, and probably my biggest mistake was not removing the cutter head to give it a thorough cleaning......
I started up the mill and everything sounded good, ran it for a while with no load. I then stared machining some table stops, because the machine had none on it, and I heard a bad crunch sound followed by a low frequency thunk thunk thunk sound coming from what sounded like the spindle area. I pulled the drive motor belts off, and rotated the drive side by hand and you could feel a tight spot and a skip when rotating it. I removed the cutter head, and first thing I see is a very nasty looking pinion gear, and inspection of what I could see of the ring gear was a LOT of broken and chipped teeth. Crap....

I cleaned the cutter head with solvent and what I saw really broke my heart. Lodged in old grease were portions of 3 broken teeth, some smaller bits of munched metal, and some ground/pulverized metal bits. The mill had been used for many years in the Horizontal position with an arbor, and I was using it vertically when the **** storm hit. It appears that someone has been into this head at one point, as the number of missing teeth far outnumber the 3 I found, and there really was not much debris in the grease. I see obvious tool marks on parts inside of the cutter head, and likely someone else had seen some damage, cleaned it up, saw missing teeth, reassembled, and ran it like it was. I finished it off, and I guess that a broken tooth dislodged from grease from old spindle bearings, floated in the oil, and landed in my ring or pinion and wreaked havoc.

There are a lot of chipped outer edges which I'm not to concerned about, but there is 25-30% of the inside teeth of the ring gear missing on multiple teeth, and a couple that are adjacent, and the pinion is rough. I am sure that VN NOS spares for this machine are rare as hen's teeth. I have used this machine since I was a kid, and really like it, but it is to rough to use as is, and I am sure that there will quickly be more damage if I tried to run it. Please see the attached photos, and the photos actually look better than it is.

What options do I have?

1. Find the unicorn NOS ring and pinion set....
2. Find a used but better condition ring and pinion set for an early VN 12.
3. Have a new ring and pinion made....... probably cost prohibitive.
4. Build up teeth with brass, probably won't hold up, and the heat from brazing will affect the hardness of the ring and pinion, not to mention hand dressing the teeth to an acceptable profile.
5. TIG weld up the missing teeth, and hand dress new teeth, again even more difficulties in hand dressing and heat treatment issues.

Help! I am open to opinions and options. It's a handy machine and I hate to see it sit for another 25 years or be sold for parts.

 

[markba633csi]

You might want to get in touch with Al Meekins at www.gearsmade.com and have him give you a quote. He says he doesn't do automotive drivetrain gears so I'm not sure if that applies here
He doesn't do heat-treating though, you would need to hire someone else to do that
Mark

 

[Packard V8]

Don't assume parts cannot be found. It cost nothing to put out a WTB here, on Practical Machinist and OWWM. Always close the WTB with, "If you don't have these parts, where else would you suggest I might be looking?"

jack vines

 

[middle.road]

<fingers-crossed> for replacement parts to be found.

 

[mattthemuppet2]

Ouch, I'm sorry to hear about that.

Anything in the Boston Gear catalogue that might work? Given that you're replacing both parts of the gear you have a bit more freedom to work with, instead of needing to find a perfect match.

Otherwise I'd try brazing them up and hand grinding to fit. It's not like you'll make them any worse and there's a good chance the repair will outlast you if it'll be given standard hobby usage.

 

[pontiac428]

Oh man oh man. I hope you find a spare, or find a good deal on custom cut hypoid gears. I don't think repair is a possibility. Nobody wants to open up their machine and see that. Search and comb until you find the bottom of the internet, there's gotta be a spare waiting in someone's shop with your name on it.

 

[FULLMONTIE]

Thanks for the replies so far and sympathy for the situation. I have now posted on several sites, so hopefully I'll find that needle in the haystack, and weighing options for having new gears made or finding something on Boston gear.

 

[middle.road]

Can't tell until you remove them but I wonder if that maybe, perhaps, hopefully the tooth geometry is standard and that there's an eq BG set (unhardened) that can be easily modified and then treated...

 

[markba633csi]

I was thinking also, perhaps the rear-end gears from a small car diff could be adapted to fit? The exact gear ratio isn't important I believe as long as they could be fitted in there..

 

[westerner]

Search and comb until you find the bottom of the internet, there's gotta be a spare waiting in someone's shop with your name on it.

Possibly the very best result of the "information" age is the concept stated above. THERE IS a machine out there with good parts, and an owner waiting for your call, even tho he doesn't know it yet. . Happy Hunting!