VN New Issue, Oil Leaking

[Jason Annen]

On my model 12, the cutter head oil has leaked into the spindle gear box. From the exploded view I have, part 14639 appears to be a seal. Does anyone have a valid modern part number for this? Also, how hard is it to change this out?

Jason

 

[Jason Annen]

More info. The manual I have does not represent the machine I have. First off, the bearings are ball bearings. There is a seal, but it is on the gear box side of bearing and the bearing outer race and the seal appear to be one piece. On the cutter head side, there is a sleeve that rotates. This sleeve is what the cutter head rotates on, and when I rotate the sleeve, the seal rotates on the inside.

If I shine a flashlight from the cutter side, light appears around the outside, lower portion of this sleeve. My guess is this is where the oil is leaking through.

The bearing end play did not change when I removed the gear, but with ball bearings, I don't think there would be any change.

Not sure where to go now, the quick and dirty way may be to green loctite the sleeve, not sure.

Jason

 

[Jason Annen]

Upon further inspection, and refilling the cutter head, the oil is leaking through the seal, around the shaft. That seal needs to be replaced. Source?

Jason

 

[reh]

Jason,

My VN12 also has the ball bearings, sounds like yours, and I had oil leak from cutterhead when I over filled. It only takes a couple of spoonfuls of spindle oil. I could not find any form of oil seal between the cutterhead and the ram gearbox, so if overfilled, my theory is that the excess just leaks past the two surfaces.

Proper fill is to place the cutterhead horizontal, and put in just enough oil to just come to the edge of the bottom plug. put in a little, give it time to settle before adding more.

Ron

 

[Jason Annen]

There is a seal behind the bearing on the ram side. I'm not sure, but I think that bearing should get its lube from the cutter head?

I probably did over fill the cutter head, but it was nearly 100% empty.

Jason

 

[Cal Haines]

On my model 12, the cutter head oil has leaked into the spindle gear box. From the exploded view I have, part 14639 appears to be a seal. Does anyone have a valid modern part number for this? Also, how hard is it to change this out?

Jason

(Apparently I forgot to hit the post button on this yesterday...)

I assume that you're talking about machine 12-5000?

The drawing that you're looking at is from 1953 and is for a late model machines with a roller bearing gearbox. You need the manual for the model with the ball bearing gearbox. Send me an e-mail and I'll send you the correct manual.

I don't think that your machine has a seal around the output shaft from the gearbox.

Cal

 

[reh]

Jeff,

More thoughts. The cutterhead and ram gear box both use the same oil, so should not make a difference if they mingle. From your photo, I notice that the thrust washer and beveled drive gear are not shown. You do have the beveled thrust washer that fits between the bearing and the drive gear? the bevel side, (smaller dimension) faces out, to mate the smaller diameter of the drive gear. On my machine, it was installed backwards, was damaged, and was subsequently lost by a friend that was supposed to make a new one for me. Fortunately, I had made a measured sketch, so a different friend was able to recreate one for me.

Ron