How much crap can there be inside my lathe's gearbox?

[GoceKU]

Last couple of project my lathe has started to make couple of new noises i can see the oil pump pumping but it looks to have lower flow, so i added couple of liters of fresh oil and prime the pump but no change, so i had a good look around and took off the suction line, can anyone see something wrong?
Yep i'm talking about all the crap in the suction line, when i bought the lathe, i drain all the old oil and clean the inside of the gearbox and found, many metal chips, couple of big ball bearings and a flat headed screwdriver just laying on the bottom of the gearbox, i've missed this pieces. And yes my lathe has straight cut gears and sounds like an jet running, very loud. Has anyone else found something similar?

 

[benmychree]

I would wonder how chips can enter the headstock gearbox?

 

[Cadillac]

From the pic they look like straight chips the size of the with of a tooth on gear? Balls and tools in there that’s scary. When I purchased my lathe one of the first things I did after inspecting gears was putting magnets on the base of headstock to collect anything that might be in there. Admittedly I haven’t checked but maybe now I will.

 

[john.k]

Its quite common to find 1/4" of black sludge in a head of a geared machine......it is the gears wearing away..........gear .chips are also common from clashing gears.......however I notice your system has a strainer with a rotary scraper.....which you definitely want to clean out......education machines are generally the worst..............I bought a Colchester once from a college that had heavy sludge and gear chips in the bottom,and the maintenance man had fitted new gears and bearings without cleaning out the head...........some of the stuff you found might be an indication the cover was left off for an extended time,as sometimes happens when a decision is being made to repair or replace a machine.

 

[hermetic]

In the bottom of my Colchester roundhead student headstock, I found, various spare parts, spacer washers and a cirllip including the originak drain plug, a new one had been made and fitted! In the qcgb I found a circlip and spacer missing from the gear train which had been left off! the circlip was jamming the selector slide at the very top, and also loads of sludge in both boxes, cleaned both out, refitted all the parts with the aid of the parts list illustrations, and refilled with new oil. what a difference!

 

[markba633csi]

That's not crap, that's a filter! LOL just kidding
Actually your gears look pretty nice, you found a serious issue in time I think
The machine is thanking you even now

 

[GoceKU]

I would wonder how chips can enter the headstock gearbox?

This lathe used to be in a metal working factory, where they have been 50 of this lathes spaced 1,5 meters apart and when one has a defect the top is opened and shavings fly in from the others lathes, when i clean it out i removed at least two handfuls of metal shavings. Also what you see in the pictures is only the top when i pulled it out there was 4 inches of shavings and other crap packed in tight.

 

[hman]

Wow!!! That's a whole lot more than the capacity of a piddly little magnet! No offense to Cadillac.

... and despite all the crud, as you've mentioned before, this old workhorse just kept on going! I'm sure lots of us on "this side of the pond" have held or expressed negative opinions about Russian machinery, quality control, etc. But nobody can fault it for getting the job done.

 

[GoceKU]

. and despite all the crud, as you've mentioned before, this old workhorse just kept on going! I'm sure lots of us on "this side of the pond" have held or expressed negative opinions about Russian machinery, quality control, etc. But nobody can fault it for getting the job done.

To be honest i've not been a big fan of russian things before i bought this lathe, but for pure durability in heavy use their old school machinery sure is good, i've even recently bought a Lada 4x4 because my new job has me going ones a week in the mounts at the serbian border where there are no roads and only thing to survive is a Lada Niva which is also Russian.