On Tuesday, March 21, 2017 at 5:28:20 PM UTC-4, Jon Elson wrote:
wrote:


I apologize for jumping in without having followed the entire thread, but
has anyone suggested that it could be as simple as a cracked bearing ball?

Oh, I think a cracked ball will go from bad to worse at a very rapid pace.
Possibly a dinged ball in the backgear assembly (like when it ran over the
bits of the retainer cage) could just get noisy and stay that way for a long
time. That's the kind of shape my back gear bearings were in, and they
generally made a loud whirring noise. But, a really cracked in half ball
ought to be fairly disasterous.

Jon

I was thinking of my old drill press, which had a cracked ball (not cracked in half, but badly chipped -- last replaced in 1948) which made a "tick, tick" sound.

--
Ed Huntress