Changing oil on your lathe... How do you do it?

[Newton]

I have filled oil on my main gearbox where I took off the whole top cover and inspected everything when the machine was delivered.

Since I at that time bought a big bucket of oil I thought I could be nice with my baby and change oil after a fair bit of use.

Now checking up, the screws to drain the machine is placed on a completely stupid place - in between the driving belt and the cogwheels
The same applies for the gear box bellow the headstock controlling the feeds. The drain is even worse placed - closer to the belt.

I have been considering pumping it out of the main gear box since I can open the cover and drop a magnet down there if there is some metal dust from the cogwheels being broken in. This is however not possible for the feeds gearbox where there is only "fill" screw and a "drain" equivalent :scratchhead:

But what do you do?
Mount some form of custom drain pipe leading the oil past the belts? Is there any stock kits available for doing these operations?
I would figure something out but if any one feels to chip in with your experiences - feel free

I can't post pics at the moment but I'm sure we all pretty much have the same or similar configs.

Kent

 

[Newton]

Hmm, I guess I'm on my own on this.
I would post my final "solution" when I get one...

 

[DaveK]

Sorry Kent, my 1963 Ta Shing lathe leaks so I have to top up the wells every couple of weeks (and wipe down the lower half of the headstock :embarrassed2: ). I guess one could call this an "auto-change" feature :thumbup:

Dave

 

[conetip]

Most will have a drain plug somewhere.Quite often hidden by the motor mount bracket or some other bolt on accessory.Some use a plug with a hex key socket.
Others don't have a drain at all and you have to pump the fluid out.

 

[MVPCues]

Hi Newton. My drain plugs have a hex key socket like conetip mentioned. When changing oil in my lathe, you are replacing about 90%. You could drain, fill, then run a few minutes, then drain again if you really want to try and do a better job flushing, but unless I am missing something that shouldn't be necessary. In my lathe, the oil reservoirs are used just to coat the gears that run through the oil at the bottom. The oil drips/slides off the gear teeth onto other gear teeth to continuously coat them all.

My reservoirs cam with oil in them, but they are not "full". In my boxes, there is just enough oil in the bottom to coat gears...the box is not full of oil and the gears are not completely submerged.

Kelly

 

[QMAKER]

Changing oil

You can get SUCTION GUNS with a flexible spout that will reach to
the bottom of your machines oil reservoir. This way you can suck out
all the junk in the corners. McMaster has them.

 

[GBCues]

Seems to me you would want to simply drain first to get any "sediment" off of the bottom. Then refill and run the lathe for a few minutes to "wash off" the gears and drain again.

Refill for the final time - an extra fill of oil, but a more total change-out IMHO.

As for a suction gun - would a turkey baster work? Possibly with an extension tube on the end? I don't have that kind of lathe, so I'm just guessing here.

HTH

Gary

 

[Newton]

Thanks for the ideas and feedback.
The headstock was not filled when the lathe was new so I have filled it with bew oil now for breakin.

The feed box has a jet black crapy oil which it was delivered with. This is for sure something I would change with to the same oil as headstock.

The main problem is to get the black stuff out without spilling oil all over the drive belts etc.

On my way out now, but I would shoot some pics of the hex nuts placement tomorrow so you could see what the problem is.

Dinner with my bether half noe

Kent

 

[Newton]

Pics

Did shoot some pics in the shop today and pic 1 and 2 show the drain plug (hex nut) for
changing the oil on the head stock.
Pic3 and 4 show the drain plug for the feed gear box.

How in the world could some one park these here when they design
a lathe :scratchhead:

Pic 1+2 show the plug just behind the belt. This is something I can overcome
by opening the lid and pump the headstocks gear box empty and possibly remove
any metal dust ''by hand''.

The feed plug is however located just beside the electronics. Just bellow the plug
is the area where the motor is located - even though the motor is not exactly under.
Here I have more problems. I can - but would never do - dismount the headstock
to get to it. I guess I have to make some form of spill tray - tube - ''lead the oil away''
kind of McGyver setup here. Either by taping something to the gear box and
hold there while the oil is drained. If only these plugs where on the back...

I'm not able to put any annotation to these pics but the plugs are indicated by
the small amount of oil which has leaked...

Kent

 

[Newton]

Hi Newton. My drain plugs have a hex key socket like conetip mentioned. When changing oil in my lathe, you are replacing about 90%. You could drain, fill, then run a few minutes, then drain again if you really want to try and do a better job flushing, but unless I am missing something that shouldn't be necessary. In my lathe, the oil reservoirs are used just to coat the gears that run through the oil at the bottom. The oil drips/slides off the gear teeth onto other gear teeth to continuously coat them all.

My reservoirs cam with oil in them, but they are not "full". In my boxes, there is just enough oil in the bottom to coat gears...the box is not full of oil and the gears are not completely submerged.

Kelly

Kelly,

My lathe came with not much as a drop of oil in it. So I added oil up to the
''oil'' eye was covered - and nothing else.
Doing so I noticed that this was just to keep the bottom of the gears covered
in oil so the cogwheels could throw the oil around in the headstock and lube
it that way. So I guess there is not required to keep the gear box covered in oil
all the time. That was at least my conclusion...

The top left pic show where the oil eye is (in the shadow area just under one of the arms)
The bottom left show the same cogwheel with oil added and the level. This is
enough to cover the oil eye as shown in bottom right pic.

I actually filled to much oil in here and took some out after a run. It seemed for
some strange reason to cause the gear box to get a litter warmer than I expected
so I did what the book said

Kent

 

[DaveK]

...and possibly remove any metal dust ''by hand''.

A magnet-on-a-stick is ideal for this work. I've used my scribe for this purpose on occassion, it has a nice rare-earth magnet on the not-sharp end :thumbup:

Dave

 

[Newton]

A magnet-on-a-stick is ideal for this work. I've used my scribe for this purpose on occassion, it has a nice rare-earth magnet on the not-sharp end :thumbup:

Dave

I was considering that but I'm not sure if I would hit the metal parts with the magnet
i.e the magnet would snap to drive axles or similar... But I guess these are stainless steel
so most likely not magnetic
I'll have a look the next couple of days.

Thanks
Kent