Clutch acting weird, HELP

[alita589]

Reading this thread, I’m confused, perhaps somebody can help me out. The way my lathes have worked, when the clutch is engaged, the apron is locked to the feed mechanism…in the case of my Logan, it’s locked to the lead screw key way, (not the lead screw threads) and in the case of the Takisawa, it’s locked to a separate feed rod. In either case, you can’t turn the hand wheel because it’s locked to the feed mechanism.

Perhaps the hand wheel should not move even when the apron is off the lathe, because there may be a gear train, a worm or such, that prevents movement in any case when clutch is engaged.

This is an older style lather that only has a lead screw with a key way running down it. There are bevel gears - not shown - that transfer power to the power feeds. This mechanism works fine. I removed it because I tracked down the issue to the clutch and it was in the way when testing the clutch issues.

 

[alita589]

I solved the problem! thank you everyone.

It turned out the star knob was to tight and could not be unscrewed. i had to get a little rough with it but once i was able to unscrew it i was able to take the rest apart, clean it, lightly sand down some galling and add a little play to make it function as expected. i am also going to add some low friction washers so when the knob is tightened it doesn't tighten the bolt when spinning.

 

[jwmelvin]

Thanks for reporting your success.