Originally Posted by M-man  it is leaking in the front, all oil must come down your tubing then, you prob got a oring that seals between the draw tube and the housing tube, so there will prob be plenty of oil when removing it.Have you had any clamping problems when you have been having this kind of leak, mabe its been a problem for internal clamping? I think you sould do like phx says, it will prob be the fastest way, a normal skilled and hany guy will fix this easy. |
I dug into the machine a bit more - I opened the access panel where the gearbox is, and it's clear there is an internal tube on the drawbar and some sort of outer tube, so I'm guessing the oil is leaking down to the chuck between the two (or at least there is a round sheath where the gearbox is that is larger diameter than the drawtube). I also took all the panels off around the spindle motor and it's a Kitagawa F1768 actuator. I'll call them Monday and see if I can't get a complete seal kit sent right out. I'm sure I can do the job myself, I have rebuilt several car engines and I replaced all the table bearings in our VMC, I just don't know lathes too well (but I'm learning)
I can't say I've noticed any problem with clamping. I paid $6000 for this LC40 lathe from a machine shop next door. It's a 4-axis/dual turret with all the options, OSP5000 control, rear-exit chip conveyor, live tooling, programmable m-codes for robotic part loader, door opener, etc. It also came with probably 50 sets of hard and soft jaws, toolholders, boring bars, inserts, drills, all the live tooling holders, front-cutting live tool adapters, BT holders for the live tooling, floating tap holder, etc. The guy that owned it is really nice and knows his machining, but he's not too hot on the mechanical/repair side. He told me luber started to make a snapping noise, and it was getting tons of oil in the coolant tank, and it was "going through" hydraulic fluid. I think he knew the repair guy would charge him a few grand to come and spend 2-3 days fixing all the issues, and he just figured he may as well get rid of it cheap.
Turns out the problem on the lube tank was just a cracked line from the pick-up to the connector on the housing, and since there was no restriction to the pump, it would raise the plunger which would then smack down (the noise he heard) and squirt the lube right back into the tank. Paid $60 for all new fittings and filters for the luber. I *thought* that was the problem with the oil in coolant also, but theres a LOT of oil in the coolant. The hydraulic pump in the tank out back made a starving noise so I shut it off right away - it took 5 gallons of hydraulic fluid to come up on the level to low (it holds 10 gallons I believe). I had also noticed the chuck was literally drenched in oil if the machine sat for more than about 10 minutes. If I rotated the chuck by hand the entire outside was covered and oil was dripping down between the jaws. I put 2 and 2 together and figured that's where the leak was.
I have really only been running the machine maybe a total of 3-4 hours of actual cut time since I got it a couple months ago (had to learn to program it and all), so I probably wouldn't have noticed a chucking problem. I am also using custom soft jaws to hold my parts, which are small 1.5" to 2.5" aluminum parts, so I probably wouldn't have noticed a problem anyway with such light duty work.
On a side note, its very interesting to "get into" this machine. The spindle motor is 60hp, and the DC motor that runs it is around 30" in diameter and about 3 feet long with giant eye-bolts on top to lift it. It has a seperate 1/2hp or so motor that drives a fan that ducts air into the main spindle motor. I laughed at that! My little hobby lathe has less power than the motor that cools the spindle on the CNC lathe
I pulled the panel housing the gearbox - what a beautiful sight. The gears are very precise, clean, pristine. The load-bearing shafts are perfectly polished - like chrome. Very interesting, and very cool.
So hopefully I can get the actuator rebuild done this week. When I removed the two lines going to the actuator, there was no fluid in there - zero. I wonder if the main hyd. pump is filling the actuator every time I turn it on, which then just leaks the fluid into the tube and out the chuck. Maybe there won't be too much fluid coming out when I pull the actuator - but we shall see!
Thanks guys!