Adoom's Victoria U0 Milling Machine

[Adoom]

I just picked this up last weekend from one photo on Trademe from a guy who took 9 days to respond to my emails.

It seems to be in okay condition. But there seems to be grease where I would expect oil, so the wheels are a work out to turn. And all the oiling nipples have been painted over. The inside is full of old oil and grease and dirt.

So I guess I'll pull it apart enough to clean the grease out.

First step. Get the motor out to find the info plate so I know what VFD to get.

The motor is mounted to a rocking mount.

That's bolted to this cover with a couple of threaded adjusters to adjust the tension on the drive chain. Yeh, CHAIN...

The chain going off to the left is for the  axis power feed gearbox. The motor BARELY fits through that hole, and it has to be at the right angle too.

That big gear then goes into the column to some flat belt pulleys. I assume Everything has to come out of here to replace that flat belt.

NFI how this is supposed to come apart, the manual I have is for the MK2 and 3, which are quite a bit different to my MK1. They changed to V pulleys instead of chain, and a gearbox instead of those flat belts.

But I managed to get the motor out. It seems real big for 2.5HP. But it's short maybe?

And after cleaning the filth off the info plate. I'll need a 400V 3 Phase VFD, it can't be wired to use 230v 3 Phase.

Because the motor doesn't have separate terminals for the coils.

It does have these cool looking BEES bolts.

[Raizer]

If you ever need to change the belt, rather than pulling everything out just cut it, pretty much anywhere that deals with conveyer belts will be able to supply a joiner.

I had one in my old lathe, you just get a slight clink noise when it passes over the pulleys lol

 

[Adoom]

With the motor out, it was less hard to clean out the sump sludge.

I filled two icecream tubs with all the sludge I could reach. But I think there may be a cavity at the back I don't have enough elbows for, as well as the area in front of the column.

So glad it doesn't smell...

Since I can't reach all of it, I've emptied about 3 litres of undiluted ExOff degreaser into it and I'll leave it for a few days. It seems to break it up quite well scrubbing with a brush, the brush doesn't become instantly packed with grease(it's possibly more like oily mud?).

I'm thinking I can maybe suck it all up using some hose attached to a bucket and have the shop vac sucking the air out of the bucket. There is a drain plug on the side, but that's totally just going to make a big mess on the floor.

[Adoom]

I've been taking it to bits to clean.

The overarm support is really bloody hard to move, I've been using the sledge with a block of wood, then once it was forward enough, there are some holes I can get the prybar in. The part of the gib strip I can see looks suspiciously like aluminium flatbar..... Hopefully it's not.

 

Just because they look like grease nipples on your mill or lathe, doesn't mean they are used for grease. OIL! OIL! OIL OIL OIL OIL !!!!!!!!!!

No wonder it took so much effort to turn the wheels.

I cleaned up the top surface and it's real dark, like black, but I can't feel obvious scoring, so I'm hoping it's okay.

[Adoom]

The knee is REAL heavy.

I wonder what the equivalent oils/greases for these are.

[tortron]

They are still made, gargoyle was a mobiloil brand name

[Adoom]

33 minutes ago, tortron said:

They are still made, gargoyle was a mobiloil brand name

The heavy oil is easy. I'll just use way oil, the stuff I have is super tacky.

But I've not been able to fin out what is the difference between 'grease BB'(apparently a bearing grease) and 'grease cn medium'.

[Raizer]

Gargoyle Grease CN Medium is recommended where surrounding conditions are dirty and dusty. Applied cold by means of a paddle, it maintains an adhesive, tacky coating on the gear teeth. When contaminated with dirt or dust, it does not form hard deposits that may pack the clearance spaces at the roots of the gear teeth. The dirt laden grease squeezes from between the roots of the teeth, carrying away the grit and leaving the metal coated with a thin tacky film of lubricant

 

That's from an oil gear information book I found, probably not much help in narrowing down exactly what it equates to in modern terms.

/I've used motorcycle chain lube spray on exposed lathe change gears with good results, they just fling oil everywhere ha

[tortron]

There's a big list of "open gear" grease and sprays available, I'd imagine any are fine (they are literally called open gear grease)