My WM180 is sick!...any ideas?

My Warco WM180 is a couple of years old and has been lightly used for clockmaking etc. Today it suddenly got sick (sob!) and none of the usual first aid has helped or shown up the problem. I'm distraught!!

There we were happily making clock bits and suddenly it sounds like there's a bus ticket in the spokes!!.....Ok at tick-over but as I turn up the speed suddenly it sounds horrible......I've tried everything!....spoken soothingly to it...given it a gentle rub up and down the bed (of lathe!)....peered inside the control housing with a torch...turned the lathe round and listened to it's motor but all bearings, change wheels and brushes seem to be ok........something sounds broken but there nothing to see......(sob!)

Any ideas out there please?

Take the belt off and run the motor which will give a good idea if it is something in the drive train or the motor is the noise is still there.

That might just be a shredded belt

Hi Bob, if there is a fan in the motor, maybe a piece of swarf has got in and is clicking away on the blades.

Regards Nick.

Thanks for help.........Jason & Nick, no the motor is fine when it's run on it's own....it's a headstock problem but I can't find it and it's not that easy to see as far as the main spindle bearings but no amount of turning, pulling or pushing etc by hand can duplicate the problem.....going to take off the banjo next and see if that makes a difference although all seems ok there.......Thanks again!

My Chester Conquest lathe sounded like that. It turned out to be the plastic gear on the lay shaft. It eventually gave up and ended up on the bed of the lathe under the head. Check if you have a plastic gear.in the drive arrangement.

Have you left a length of bar inside the spindle bore which is rattling around?

Ed

Yes, i used to have a Conquest too and the plastic gear wheels were one of my first thoughts but there appear to be no plastic components...that I can find or see in the spare parts diagrams......

............Nothing inside the spindle either!....Thanks to both!

Take the chuck off and see if the noise goes away. Could be a loose component inside the chuck, eg chuck key barrel or scroll plate etc.

Thanks for all replies..........Removing the chuck was one of the first things I did and the cover plate for the spindle rear has never been fitted as I also use a handle and often pass silver steel right thru the spindle etc....

Might you be able to use a mechanic's stethoscope to locate the location of the noise?

Or the old standby of a screwdriver handle in the ear'ole with tip on the machine?

If it has ball or roller bearings for the mandrel, it is possible that one of those may have failed?

Hopper's suggestion of applying one end of a screwdriver to the ear, and the other to bearing housings may help a lot.

Howard

Once again, thank you so much to all who answered my cries for help!....I really do appreciate it!....it's what this forum is all about.

The cause of the problem turned out to be a small square or paxolin type material, presumably factory detritus, which must have been behind the apron from day one. Something, perhaps using the auto-feed, caused the piece to become engaged with the leadscrew....at slow speed it was able to ride up and down in teh thread but when the speed was increased it could not cope and flicked from thread to thread, rather like something drawn along the teeth of a comb.... The WM180 is a very short lathe so the probblem sounded close to the headstock, not helped by my tinnitus in one ear!

..........Of course I had to more or less disassemble the entire lathe to find the problem...early this morning I took apart the idler pulley but the bearing turned out to be fine..then I took out the banjo and this DID eliminate the prob but I microscopically examined all of the change wheels along with their fixings before finallly gettting to the apron....

Alls well that ends well,...thanks again to all!

The main thing is that the problem is cured, and that it was not an expensive fix!

Howard

Amazing what such a simple thing can cause such a problem !

Makes you wonder about all this "Pre Delivery Inspection "

Never did believe that crap anyway !, seems to be a case of "Get them out quick, get the money in quicker "

However, I,m glad you got it sorted out so handy, strange sounds like that make me uneasy.

The weird aspect is that I have been using the lathe for nearly two and a half years without anything amiss and also how suddenly this happened......I stopped the lathe to go and help my wife load her car and when I switched back on it was to a different machine......

To be fair to Warco they would have had to have disassembled the apron and feed lever/half nuts to have found the 'foreign body' inside....if every lathe was totally stripped down for pre-sale inspection then the cost would presumably go thru the roof! I've been pleased with the lathe mainly and it's a nice little machine for the price....some of the parts show the crudeness of speedy manufacture but until this I have never had any problems and it's quite accurate where it matters.

Thanks again to all responders!