[Lathe] New to me Yangzhou TY-CO632 13x40 Gear Head Lathe.

I got the cosmoline cleaned off of all of the accessories, replaced the hold down bolts for the compound and the clamp handle for the tail stock. The machine is basically ready to make chips. I'm going to order a BXA tool post from Shars this week.

Amongst the boxes of cutting tools and Morse drills I found a Starrett 657 magnetic base, a Scherr Tumico Japanese dial indicator, and a bunch of change gears. The gears are 30, 36, 42, 50, 54, 60, 66, and 156T. The machine has a 120/127 metric transposition gear, so I'm not sure what they are for.

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I ran the lathe at 2000rpm for a couple hours today. I got the impression that they never ran it above 750 rpm. Afterward the headstock was around 120F. At this rpm the noise level is around 96dB. I think a lot of that is from the straight cut gears but I'm wondering if there's a bearing on its way out.

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When you have a mill there will always be projects where you really need a lathe. So a couple weeks ago I bought a lathe.

Of course once you have a lathe you will immediately find projects that for it that you need to make on a mill, right? I needed an indicator holder so that I could make some projects that needed precision control of the X axis.

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Once I had the indicator holder done I could make a new multi vee spindle pulley and upper spindle bearing carrier for my CNC converted G0704 mill. The pulley has a journal that fits into this 6007 bearing and the carrier is the same OD as the original upper bearing. The 6007 is the same as the lower spindle bearing and is rated for 7000 rpm on grease. The original top bearing was only rated for 5000 rpm and went out after a couple years of running at 4500 rpm. The new pulleys will have two ranges with 0-6750 rpm for the upper range and 0-2250 rpm for the low range. That will allow most of my programs to run 50% faster, but on the occasion that I need to use a big tool or machine steel I have a range that has 2x more torque than I have available now.

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I've noticed a couple issues with the lathe lately.

First, the cross slide would move free when it was close to the center of the lathe, but on the outer end it seemed to bind. I pulled the cross slide off last night and cleaned the closs slide, its gib, and the cross screw block in my parts cleaner. I'm amazed how much dirt this machine still has hidden in it. I reassembled it and the block would move free on the way out until the last inch or so and then it felt bound up. There was still some dried cosmoline on the screw that came off when I ran a metal pick along the threads. On the way in it was even worse. I cleaned the block again and ran it on the screw a few times until it was moving a freer. It isn't perfect, but it's much better than it was before I started.

Second, the lathe had an oscillation that would show up on the work if I was taking a light pass. I could see it as a rough patch that wound around the work. Kind of like -----\/\/\/\/---- but wrapped around the work. I took the belt covers off and found that both belts were loose and that they were no longer matched. One seems to be about 1/2" longer than the other. I pulled one of the belts off and tightened the other. The motor is at the bottom of it's adjustment range and the belt is still a little loose. I'll have to order a shorter set of belts.

Finally, the noise level in the two top speeds seems excessive. I'm getting 115dB at 2000 rpm and 105dB at 1255 rpm using a dB meter app on my phone. All of the other speeds are less than 95dB at the same distance. I asked C_Spray to take measurements on his G4016 using the same app and he was seeing about 10dB less at the same speeds. I pulled the cover off the headstock and I don't see any chipped gears. I'm wondering if there's a bad bearing or two.

 
Bringing this thread back to life.

I've noticed some strange finish issues and the excessive noise led me to believe that there was probably a bad bearing or two in the head stock. I pulled the spindle yesterday afternoon and sure enough there are a few rough bearings. Both of the spindle bearings sound rough. The bearings in the feed idler were really rough.

Here's a video I took of the spindle bearings:

I ordered a set of replacement spindle bearings from Grizzly (G4016 parts). They didn't carry the idler bearing anymore but I found those at VXB Bearings (16004). The total for the 4 bearings was under $200.
 
The new bearings showed up yesterday afternoon. It took me a couple tries to get the spindle and gears back into the head stock but I finally got it worked out. I set the cover on the head stock this morning and fired it up. The lathe sounds much quieter at every speed. I can't wait to get it all buttoned up and turn some metal with it again.

One thing I noticed while I had the cover off is that the gears aren't exactly lined up when the shift lever is in the detents. It isn't causing any rubbing/clashing but a couple of the gears have less than full engagement. It's something I can live with for now, but I'll put it on the to do list.
 
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I have a YCL 1340 and one of the things that made noise was the input to the QCGB. When tightening the sector arm it put the input gear in a bind and caused it to owl a bit. Took a little time to cure the binding problem but it quieted sown quite a bit once freed up.
 
After I got the lathe back together I measured the noise level at 110dB at 3', before it was 115dB at the same distance. It sounds like it's all gear noise. If I put the carriage feed in neutral it drops down another 3dB or so.

I did a couple hours worth of turning with it over the weekend. At first the finish didn't seem much better. Then I tightened the spindle bearings about 1/16th of a turn and it seemed to help. After doing some reading on the web I think they might still need to be tightened a bit more. I can turn the 6" chuck by hand and it will make 2-3 revolutions before it stops.

There is still a bit of a harmonic somewhere in the drive system. I think it's because the belt isn't running true. I'm going to pick up a Gates Tri-Power belt today and see if it will run a little smoother.
 
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-- So far you've done all things I'd try first. If you can, disconnect the LH gear train by taking out the first idler gear and try the noise test again.
 
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