On Sat, 06 Jun 2015 14:39:56 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:

On Wed, 03 Jun 2015 20:56:17 -0500, Don Foreman
wrote:

My lathe is throwing oil at me from behind the chuck. I like this
lathe a lot. I've been using it for a couple of decades. I'd like to
get that oil slinging problem fixed.

There are no seals in the headstock; it uses a "labyrinth" slinger
method of oil management.

One guy I talked to asked if I ever turn plastic. (Yes, I do, fairly
often) He said he'd seen this befo fine delryn or nylon swarf
somehow gets in behind the chuck and plugs an internal drain hole.

The lathe is an Enterprise 1550 made by Mysore Kirloskar Electric in
India.

(This is probably where Larry Jaques insensitively and rudely asks
what I did to my Kirloskar to make it sore.)

It (the lathe, not my Kirloskar) looks a lot like a Clausing
Colchester, and I think that the maker had a relationship with
Colchester at one time back in the early '70s. I've been told that
this method of headstock oil management is used on some Colchesters.

I located the nuts that preload the spindle bearings, made a spanner
and got them off. The gears on the spindle in the headstock slide
freely, now that grub screws and circlips have been removed. From
looking at the drawings (I have the manual) I can see no reason why
the D1-4 camlock spindle shouldn't just slide out toward the tailstock
so I can get in there to clean out a plugged drain hole. But I can't
get the damned spindle to budge. I've pried on it and hit it a few
times with a big brass hammer.

I thought I had a professional on deck to come help me with this but
it appears that he's flaked on me.

Any informed or experienced ideas or suggestions? I really don't want
to barf up the spindle bearings.

Check to see where the oil drains from that labyrinth and blow high
pressure air into it. I had to do that with an old Clausing 13x40
that I had here for a while. It came out of a plastics shop.

Gunner


I did check that possibility here. Can't see that passage on the
extant assembled machine but I can see it on the drawings. That
drain hole looks to me to be inaccessable without moving the spindle
at least an inch or two to the right. There is NO way to get in
there with a bent tube from inside the headstock; big gear in the way.
That gear is now loose and slides freely, but not far before it hits
a projection in the headstock casting.

Perhaps a dentist crosstrained as a proctologist (or vicey versey) who
can do rear-entry root canals could do this ...

How did you do that without moving the spindle?