Speed 10 Questions

I am the proud new owner of a Myford Speed 10 and am very pleased with it.

The Lubrication instructions say that I need grease/grease gun for the spindle bearings and 2 types of oil for the remainder which will need 2 dedicated oil pumps.

Is all this strictly necessary as it adds up to well over £100 to buy everything needed!

Are there any cheaper/simpler ways of keeping everything lubed?

Any advice much appreciated.

PS My lathe is silver/grey, all pictures of other speed 10s I have seen show them painted green. The paint job on my lathe looks like a factory finish to me, does anyone know if any did leave the factory silver? Its not important, I just wondered.

Thanks

Mike

Hi Mike

Sorry to see you've had no response yet, however an lube is better than no lube at all, colours I've seen green, silver grey and even a couple of blues so maybe they were colour requests when purchased originally, I have used various oils and greases with in mind that the recommended may really have been a manufacturers choice for commercial enhancement as after sales, lubrications have become far more significant nowadays and manufactured to higher specifications than previously so don't feel pressure to buy the expensive as per branded stuff.

as an e.g.. Mobil fully synthetic for engine £10..00 per ltr, Tesco same as £4..50 per ltr. and before you say are but. would you expect a major refinery company like mobil to have two process plants one producing a cheaper version just for tesco, answer NO what happens is tesco say to mobil we'll buy 60 Million ltrs from you in our packaging for £3.00 per ltr as a guaranteed sale like they do with fuels

Mine was silver, original paint.

Buy 2 cheap pump action oil cans, make new nozzles to fit Myford nipples. Buy a plunger grease gun for grease. About £10 for the lot.

Dave

Mike

I love my Speed 10. Mine is silver/gray (1973). I believe the last issues were in green. Try to determine what was used for grease on the spindle bearings. It is not recommended to mix grease types but it happens.. You can use any hydraulic jack oil ISO AW 32 for everything else.

Cheers

Bill

If it is a ball bearing spindle headstock the lube is grease, if plain bearing then oil. slides etc , oil.

Clive

Personally I would use slideway oil what ever Myford say for the oil. You might say it's a more modern invention than sae 32 mineral oils of one sort or another - hydraulic oil generally.

Slideway oil has the advantage that it's meant to be exposed to the air and intended specifically for that job. It hangs around for a long time and has less tendency to oxidise. One person on here mentioned that he drowned his lathe with it. I'd say a light and coating once a month is more than often enough. If the lathe hasn't been oiled often it may need doing more frequently for a while.

For bearing grease I am a firm believer in high speed moly grease. Arc stock it. If not buy an ordinary bearing grease. A synthetic may not be a good choice if other greases have been used. Other than that don't worry about mixing greases.

Both the Speed 10 and the later ML10 are a good choice for a small lathe - they really can be found with very little if any wear at all. I think some did go out silver as they are a slight mod to the later ML10's - the extra speed range. It should be possible to set the saddle gib strip for slight resistance to movement and still move it all along the bed. Same for the other slides. Ideally this should be done with the lead screws out as they might be set too tight when these are used. Doing this is a good way of getting the oil where it should be too as the cross and compound slides can be pulled off.

John

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Car engine oils have a high detergent component that keeps the rubbish in suspension so it is caught in the oil filter and disposed off. I used Castrol GTX in my headstock and after 20 years it was black. I now use ATF, its good for 100k miles in a gear box thats transmit 100 HP through gears not much bigger then headstock gears and must be compatible with rubber seals clutch materials etc. Also stick a magnet in side the head stock, it should pick up bits of ferrous dust, mine was covered with a fine dust at the oil change.

Frank

Thankyou for all the advice, it gives me plenty to think about.

I will get a grease gun and some gp bearing grease and pump a load through which should see the headstock bearings OK.

The remainder I will buy a pump oil can and mod to suit the nipples. The slideway oil sounds like a good choice and I will source some of this.

The only remaining questions

The slideway oil should be suitable for the slides, lead screws, tailstock etc but will it be OK for the motor bearings and countershaft?

Will a standard pump action oil can generate sufficient pressure to pump oit through the nipples?

Thankyou

Mike

I'm surprised that Myford would use oil on motor bearings. It's usually grease and often no way to grease them as well.

Strictly speaking you should use sae32 on the countershaft bearings. It has to be said that mine don't get done often as they now run on sintered bronze which holds oil and they haven't seen any since I switched to slideway oil. They have little oil caps with a pop up cover so don't need a gun of any sort just any old oil can. The jack oil or any sae 32 hydraulic oil will do for that. They are mineral oils which is the important aspect as far as I am aware.

One interesting aspect is that I have always thought that the 32 grade for this is an sae grade not an iso. I've not bought any for a long time so am probably confused and should have said iso.

Checking I am confused, sorry about that. Should be ISO 32. It seems the equiv SAE grade would be 10W

John

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The motor bearings have the little oil cups with the flip up lids so are not really a problem. I can drop anything suitable in easily.

The countershaft bearing on the other hand has a nipple on the shaft at the pulley end. This means there is a bit of a distance to the bearing and insufficient pump pressure might mean the oil doesn't reach its destination.

Mike

I neglected to say in my response to your original post that if you remove the motor belt tension lever; the one with the little round black knob, you have direct access to the counter shaft spindle through the threaded hole. This came to mind as I was just now oiling my Speed 10.

Cheers

Bill

This place may be of use if people want to change oiling facilities. My Pultra has gone 1770 and the new head had the original oil nipples which aren't easy to use so I switched to right angle cups.

**LINK**

John

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Thankyou Bill that is a very useful bit of information.