Member postings for sparky mike

I now have to order the various missing gears.

I need to know what DP Myford gears are ?

I assume that they were imperial sizes in the 50's when the box was produced.?

I have lined up the gearbox casing with the lathe and guard and I find that there is a slight gap between the LH face of the box and the rear face of the guard. Is this correct. The gap is around 1/16" at a guess.

Mike.

Hi Kwil,

Many thanks for that information. I can double check those dimensions on my lathe by fitting the quick change rear cover to the lathe and box and the holes in the box ought to line up with your dimensions.

As the three holes in the back end of the bed do not seem to be on a machined surface I might be inclined to fit a thin sheet of alloy between guard and bed to allow a bit of "give" as I don't want to crack the guard. Re. the shim at the rear of the box, I had guessed it was no more than 1/16".

One part of the gearbox just refused to budge when I tried to remove it. The part was 203 (Anchor pin A 3015) in the manual. I tried penetrating oil and then heat and eventually gave up, until today. I slipped a large tube and thick washer on the pin and replaced the end nut and used the nut as a puller and it extracted it easily. This tip may well help other Myford owners who wish to change the pin through wear etc. and no strip down of the actual box is needed although I think that the alloy rear guard would have to be removed first.

With all this information I have no excuse now, but to get on and fix it !!

Hi Dennis,

Many thanks for the in-depth information on the early box. I did not think it was going to be easy !! The lathe was picked up from an estate sale by the previous owners son. There is a slim chance that some of the missing parts are still at the same address so I am taking steps to check on that, now that I have a better idea what is not actually here !!

My lead screw is full length at the moment, but at some time in the past it looks like it was fitted to an early box, as now there is a thicker tube portion that might have been welded/brazed on to take it back to standard length. It can not have been used on my lathe with a box ,as there are no holes drilled and tapped on the side of the bed for the box fitting.

While on that subject point, I would like to drill the box fixing holes while the machine is stripped down. Does anyone have a drawing for the position of them ?

One part of the box I can't yet figure out. The smallest gear on the internal cluster is a 16 teeth gear. There is a cross hole in the shaft where this gear should be. Is this for lubrication , or is that single gear pinned? All the others are secured by a long key and they are all here. If you could explain how the drive is taken from the cluster gear shaft to the layshaft and also the purpose of the dog clutch, I will then have all the facts. (I hope !!)

One last question, should there be a ball and spring under the top cover to act as a detent for the quadrant. ? The small grub screw is present but no detent here.

Mike.

Hi John,

Now re-measured and they came to 1.203 and 1.180.

However, Alan has kindly posted the gear details above so I can now find some blank gears and bore them out to suit. Possibly some of the stock Myford gears will fit or adapt. The 18 teeth gears will need the keyways, but I think that the idler gear has a plain shaft.

Mike.

Hi John,

I will find some rods to fit the bores and measure with a micrometer.

Mike.

I have now had a chance to measure the gear centers. It is 1 3/16" either side of the center gear.

If my calculations are correct, the top gear 18T (if that is correct size) , would measure around .956" over the top of the teeth. As the hole centers are equal, it would make sense that the small leadscrew gear is also 18T. If that is correct, then all that is needed is to select an idler gear for the center position that meshes correctly with the two smaller gears. Any comments welcome.!!

See photos on link below. There are some before and after pictures of the lathe bed. It is only in primer at the moment, but it is looking a lot better than when I purchased it. The slides are covered in masking tape while it is being painted.

**LINK**

Hi John,

No I don't have any of the gears on the right hand side of the box. However I also make the top gear 18. The middle is debateable at 32T and the leadscrew possibly 20T. Tony at lathes uk does the manual for the early box, so I have emailed him with a view to buying it. Could save a bit of time in the long run.

Mike.

If the internal gears are the same on both boxes, then the same gearing must be employed to take the drive from the layshaft to leadscrew in either type of box or else the screw cutting will not be correct. Admittedly, the two driving gears could have more or less teeth, as long as the ratio was the same.(The idler gear as said before does not matter as long as it fills the gap and meshes correctly.

Perhaps someone can tell me how many teeth are on the gears in question in one of the later gear-boxes. At least this will be a start and something to go on. (Unfortunately, the pictures of the gearing on Tony's site are not sharp enough to cound the teeth on the right hand end of the box.)

The electric motor has been stripped and cleaned and checked out and is now in primer. I will have this part working before the lathe is anywhere near ready !!

Mike.

Hi John,

Yes that is the one. Certainly had me mystified ,as I could not figure out how the lead screw got through the box, going by the later manual !! If most of the parts for the early box are the same as the later one, I stand a chance of getting this one back in one piece. On the picture on Tony's lathe site, I believe that one of the gears on the right hand end of the box is just an idler and is held on to the end of the nine gear shaft by a washer and screw. If I could find out the number of teeth on the two corresponding gears, then the idler could be worked out from those.

I don't know how many early type boxes were made, but the serial number on my box is OC 1802 or possibly QC ****

Mike.

I now know why the operation of the box seems impossible. It turns out by looking at other box photos that are for sale, that mine is different !! On my box, the lead screw does not pass through the box, but ends in a blind hole in the right hand side of the casting. The drive is taken from the other shafts by three gears that are on the right hand face, outside the box , where there is also an alloy cover, which in my case is missing. I am now wondering how many more parts are different to the normal box ?

Mike.

Can anyone explain the workings of the Myford quick change gearbox. I assume that the large external gear drives the input shaft. How does the box connect to the leadscrew shaft? How do the layshaft gears transmit the power from input shaft to leadscrew? I have downloaded the gearbox manual, but it does not show the drive path in various gears.It does not quite make sense to me at the moment, but no doubt it does work somehow !!

Mike.

I am now painstakingly removing all the paint from the various parts. Does anyone know what type of primer Myford used. I believe they probably used an etch primer on the bare alloy parts, but on the cast iron parts they used a very thick primer that was used to hide all the imperfections in the castings.I need to know what one more part is used for. It is on the right hand top side of the countershaft arm (part no. 60 in the manual) It has a flat disc shaped knob about 1" in diameter and the shaft is threaded and there is a spring on the shaft. It is not in the Seven manual that I downloaded, so might have only been fitted to the early production models. perhaps Maurice knows the answer? (Did you get my email address ok Maurice?)

Mike.

Edited By sparky mike on 26/07/2012 09:27:09

Well I have now removed the brass tube ,that holds the adjusting needle ,which controls the flow of oil to the main front bearing of the headstock. Not an easy job, I tried a slide hammer ,but that did not work. In the end I drilled out the top half of the tube which then loosened the tube enough to allow me to pull the remaining part out. The bottom half is of reduced diameter which allows the oil entry from the top reservoir.

I have enough left of that part to turn up a copy. I can now remove the sight glass housing. I don't know if that is original or not, but I will probably make a new housing up from a nylon rod of the correct diameter.

I have just put some pictures on Flickr and hopefully the link with work.

**LINK**

Mike.

I would like to post photos but don't know the method. Can anyone direct me to how to post a picture posting ?

Mike.

I have now removed the window from the headstock sight glass. In fact this was just a small plastic disc that a previous owner had glued to what remains of the sight glass plastic tube. I want to remove the plastic tube, but the oil drip needle brass tube passes into this tube which prevents removal.

Is this brass tube pushed in under pressure or is it screwed in? I do have a slide hammer here, so I can withdraw it if it is pushed in. However I do not wish to damage anything until I have more information to hand.

Mike.

Hi Tom,

No sign of any chrome ring on my sight glass, so I wonder if only later models had the screwed ring, or mine has been lost at some time in the past. The glass just seems to be stuck in some kind of sealer.

Thanks for advise, all very useful . The drawing link you put on your post worked, but the clutch there is different from mine, which works in the stepped pulley and the shaft does not have the elongated slot at the end milled in it.

 My working lathe is a Boxford, but I have always wanted a Myford so grabbed it while the going was good. I now have the bed stripped to the bare metal and now mostly coated in etch primer. (The lathe, not me !!)

Mike.

Edited By sparky mike on 23/07/2012 18:36:49

I have now found the serial number which was on the back of the bed slide near the tailstock position.

It is SK 198* . Early 50's I presume. The adjusted plug and adjuster screw are both missing, so if anyone has details of sizes/threads etc. it would be a great help.

Anyone know how the sight glass for the oiler is held in place?

Next stage is to order some Battleship Grey oil resistant paint.

Mike.

Hi,

I have just purchased a Myford Super 7 in rather a sorry state. Maunly needs cleaning and re-painting. However, with the lathe is a quick change gearbox which is missing the layshaft and two ? gears. I don't believe this was ever fitted to the lathe I have here and there is also an extra end cover to suit the gearbox. Now where could I obtain the missing parts? Are they likely to cost an arm and a leg and as for the missing layshaft, does anyone have the dimensions, as I could get that made locally ? Second question is the clutch mechanism. Mine does not resemble the drawings in the Myford 7 info that I downloaded. The clutch is in the cluster pulley. Does anyone have the layout for this early type of clutch as I think that there might be a plunger missing from the shaft center area.? Strange thing is that it engaged and disengaged when I operated the lever, but on the bench the cone clutch does not grip and seems slack.Last question.Where is the serial number on this lathe.? I believe it is quite an early one as the headstock oiler has a sight glass on the side of the headstock.Mike.