Taking advice from benmychree and cj5dave

[ltlvt]

Per cj5dave's suggestion I pulled the cover off of the worm gear box and checked the oil level. It has a hell of a lot more oil than I expected but sure seems like super light viscosity for gears. I may empty it and go back with gear oil. Kind of on the fence. My gear head mill and gear head lathe take some pretty light hydraulic oil so maybe that is what is in it. In all the worm and worm gear look good.

Benmychree suggested I plug the holes with some screens before the mud daubers invade the motor again. I can say that is excellent adivce. I bought a Ingersol Rand 2 stage compressor . Was running great. I told myself "Better cover those irtake and exhaust ports in the motor before the mud daubers take it over. Well I thought I could wait a couple of weeks. Stupid decision on my part. Cost me another compressor motor at almost $350. So today I took the advice of benmychree and took time to take the gurad off the motor and stuff some plastic bag into the ports . I also found a way to repurpose the fan cover from the Chimota. Seems the od of the good motor is the same as the id of the fan cover. So as you can see I took a Red=neck Detour and am repurposing it for the front of the motor. It will have insect screen wire inside so the little bastards can't climb inside and make themselves at home. I also have plans to reuse the burned out Chimota for something that only a Redneck dreams of. Hopefully before winter gets here I will have some pics of what I am going to use it for. BTW I did get the grass mowed today. The Mosquitoes are molesting the Alligators here at the Sticker Ranch.

 

[jcp]

I live in south central Oklahoma not all the far from you as the crow flys. We too are plagued with mud daubers. Have you notice that there are amateur and professional mud daubers. The pro daubers make an abode mud that takes a tool to remove and the redneck daubers make mud that you can remove with you hand.

 

[ltlvt]

I live in south central Oklahoma not all the far from you as the crow flys. We too are plagued with mud daubers. Have you notice that there are amateur and professional mud daubers. The pro daubers make an abode mud that takes a tool to remove and the redneck daubers make mud that you can remove with you hand.

yep

 

[hotrats]

We had the "Mud Daubers" in NC. Seemed like a over abundance of them. Always heard them called "Dirt Daubers" though. Dang they would plug up anything.

 

[ltlvt]

We had the "Mud Daubers" in NC. Seemed like a overabundance of them. Always heard them called "Dirt Daubers" though. Dang they would plug up anything.

Growing up as a kid in West Texas we called them Dirt Daubers too but that is because in West Texas it is too dry to use mud. LOL Here my east property line lies in the center of an irrigation canal. My west property line is only about 200 feet from a creek that always has water in it. My property is 1000 feet deep so You can say that I have 2000 feet of "prime" Mud Dauber real estate.

 

[markba633csi]

Would a drywall guy be considered a "Pro Dauber"?

 

[benmychree]

About worm gears and oil; it is not generally a good idea to use an oil that contains an EP (extreme pressure) additive, such as would be intended for a automotive rear end, the ingredient corrodes the bronze gear and the worm rubs it off on a continuous destructive process, the gear teeth will go away all too soon, I have seen it happen, Generally speaking, worm gears like a fairly heavy lubricant.

 

[Jake M]

Per cj5dave's suggestion I pulled the cover off of the worm gear box and checked the oil level. It has a hell of a lot more oil than I expected but sure seems like super light viscosity for gears. I may empty it and go back with gear oil. Kind of on the fence. My gear head mill and gear head lathe take some pretty light hydraulic oil so maybe that is what is in it. In all the worm and worm gear look good.

You don't need "thick" to protect gears any more. OIl isn't what it used to be. Think about the automatic transmission fluid holding back many hundreds of horsepowers and way over a thousand foot pounds on the LTL and long haul trucks knocking out a hundred plus thousand miles a year, going three to six hundred thousand miles on a drain interval.... Thin oil can do gears.

A worm gear is a little different than a heavy automatic transmission, but what you've got is a mid speed (not challenging), and exceedingly low torque arrangement.

Gear oil might run a little warm if you use it for extended periods. Might not get you the miles per kilowatt that you're used to, but I doubt that's a big enough power consumer, probably never know the difference. Prolly wouldn't hurt anything.

I put Shell Harmony AW68 in mine after I estimated it to be "broken in". (For what it is, I'm not sure there's an objective way to determing the end of breaking in, and the progression of wearing out.....). For lack of ambition to put a sight glass in it, I take the cover off a couple times a year just to make sure there's no frogs or salamanders living in there. It's still clear and clean in there. Off label, but it's doing the job.

About worm gears and oil; it is not generally a good idea to use an oil that contains an EP (extreme pressure) additive, such as would be intended for a automotive rear end, the ingredient corrodes the bronze gear and the worm rubs it off on a continuous destructive process, the gear teeth will go away all too soon, I have seen it happen, Generally speaking, worm gears like a fairly heavy lubricant.

That's a very misunderstood thing, that has nearly (not completely) gone away. The internet at large keeps making it a bigger and bigger problem, yet we're at a point where you (almost, not quite) don't even have to think about it.

If you're in doubt about any "differential oil" product, (or any product for that matter) go to the manufacturer's web site and look for the PDS. In the copper test, look for 1A or 1B. Or pick a manual transmission oil of the same weight, 80/90 (or SAE 50. Same/same for this purpose). Depending on the age of the gears you've seen fail, it's probably nothing to do with that aspect anyhow. It's a very long term thing, much more likely to do damage to the super fine surface features in the undersized blocker rings in a car transmission than they are to take off enough material to affect teeth on a worm or wheel as large as the one in these saws. Besides, it's a couple of ounces of oil in there. And a big brass gear. Once the oil (or more specifically, it's sufurized EP package) is saturated with copper, it's done. It's not taking any more. You'd have to change that oil a hundred and fifty or 200 times to get enough copper gone to weaken enough brass to get a visible wear scar. Forget about wearing enough to bother the function.

What you do need is boundry lubrication. This is a non throated worm and wheel. It's GOING to wear, and oil is not going to fix that. EP is good for that. AW as well, covers the same goals. Hypoid oil (differential oil) is fine, and if you're worried, look at the data sheet. 1A or 1B are very, very safe. B might give discoloration. Neither bother anything. Or manual transmission oils. Those have always contained "suceptable" copper content in a couple of forms. Or you could hunt down a compounded mineral oil, or a specialized PAO synthetic oil.

Or you could remember that these non throated worm and wheel gears are already a pricepoint design compromise, and no oil in the world will make them run forever, so all they have to do is outlive the rest of the saw. That's an easy target to hit.

 

[benmychree]

You don't need "thick" to protect gears any more. OIl isn't what it used to be. Think about the automatic transmission fluid holding back many hundreds of horsepowers and way over a thousand foot pounds on the LTL and long haul trucks knocking out a hundred plus thousand miles a year, going three to six hundred thousand miles on a drain interval.... Thin oil can do gears.

A worm gear is a little different than a heavy automatic transmission, but what you've got is a mid speed (not challenging), and exceedingly low torque arrangement.

Gear oil might run a little warm if you use it for extended periods. Might not get you the miles per kilowatt that you're used to, but I doubt that's a big enough power consumer, probably never know the difference. Prolly wouldn't hurt anything.

I put Shell Harmony AW68 in mine after I estimated it to be "broken in". (For what it is, I'm not sure there's an objective way to determing the end of breaking in, and the progression of wearing out.....). For lack of ambition to put a sight glass in it, I take the cover off a couple times a year just to make sure there's no frogs or salamanders living in there. It's still clear and clean in there. Off label, but it's doing the job.




That's a very misunderstood thing, that has nearly (not completely) gone away. The internet at large keeps making it a bigger and bigger problem, yet we're at a point where you (almost, not quite) don't even have to think about it.

If you're in doubt about any "differential oil" product, (or any product for that matter) go to the manufacturer's web site and look for the PDS. In the copper test, look for 1A or 1B. Or pick a manual transmission oil of the same weight, 80/90 (or SAE 50. Same/same for this purpose). Depending on the age of the gears you've seen fail, it's probably nothing to do with that aspect anyhow. It's a very long term thing, much more likely to do damage to the super fine surface features in the undersized blocker rings in a car transmission than they are to take off enough material to affect teeth on a worm or wheel as large as the one in these saws. Besides, it's a couple of ounces of oil in there. And a big brass gear. Once the oil (or more specifically, it's sufurized EP package) is saturated with copper, it's done. It's not taking any more. You'd have to change that oil a hundred and fifty or 200 times to get enough copper gone to weaken enough brass to get a visible wear scar. Forget about wearing enough to bother the function.

What you do need is boundry lubrication. This is a non throated worm and wheel. It's GOING to wear, and oil is not going to fix that. EP is good for that. AW as well, covers the same goals. Hypoid oil (differential oil) is fine, and if you're worried, look at the data sheet. 1A or 1B are very, very safe. B might give discoloration. Neither bother anything. Or manual transmission oils. Those have always contained "suceptable" copper content in a couple of forms. Or you could hunt down a compounded mineral oil, or a specialized PAO synthetic oil.

Or you could remember that these non throated worm and wheel gears are already a pricepoint design compromise, and no oil in the world will make them run forever, so all they have to do is outlive the rest of the saw. That's an easy target to hit.

One failure that I saw was on a well built worm gear drive that powered a labeling machine in a local winery, the labeler was likely built in the late 1930s, but the worm gear had been replaced about one year previously when it again wore out and had to be replaced, the machine ran mostly 8 hour days and 5 day workweeks, we took it apart and there was a worm gear with virtually no teeth left and the unmistakable smell of EP oil, I immediately knew the reason for failure, and we replaced the gear, cleaned out the oil and replaced it with the proper compounded cylinder oil, and there was no repeat of the problem. I am advised that there are indeed ep type oils that are compatible with bronze worm gears, but obviously this was not one of them.

 

[mattthemuppet2]

there are a bunch of EP gear oils that are yellow metal safe, but you have to look on the label to check. I think the one I use for my HF4x6 is a walmart supertech one. I change it every 100h or so and haven't seen any noticeable increase in wear.