Clarke 165E wire feed problem.

[Alan Reynolds]

Hi, First time poster here so forgive any errors I make please.

I offered to look at Clarke 165E mig welder for a friend.

The wire reel apparently 'bird nested' (no brake spring on the wire reel by the looks of it) and he kept his finger on the trigger.

I could feel that it was trying to feed so I stripped the gearbox.

The first nylon cog after the motor gear has a couple of crushed/stripped teeth.

Obviously parts will be long extinct but has anyone found a substitute for the gears or anyone who can cobble up a metal/brass replacement?

The owner of the welder is somewhat poorer than a church mouse so it would be nice if I could be a good samaritan and resurrect his machine.

So glad I've found this site as my own welding is similar to pigeon guano sometimes and I may be able to gain some more skills.

Many thanks.

 

[rtbcomp]

Welcome to the forum.

If the bird's nest occurred between the rollers and the liner then it's nothing to with the brake on the reel, that would cause a bird's nest between the reel and the rollers.

You could try Clarke for spares, but I suspect they would only sell you a complete wire feed unit. Have a look in our links section for manuals and contact info.

To stop a bird's nest in future set the tension between the feed rollers such that the rollers will slip if the wire is obstructed at the nozzle, and make sure the liner is as close to the rollers as you can get it.

 

[mike 109444]

Welcome Alan. Any pics of the duff gear and motor (place a ruler/tape along side for scale) might be someone will know of a similar gear .I do have a load of 24v gear/motors asy's (48 rpm and 310 rpm) but they only have a 4.8 dia output shaft. May have suitable gear inside ?
See pic.

 

[Alan Reynolds]

Well I managed to sort the gearbox out. Here's what I found.

The tops of three teeth on the fist gear meshing with the motor pinion had lost the tops of their teeth.

I tried harvesting some plastic from the inside of the gear and melting it on to the tips of the teeth but they were too contaminated.

I them examined the meshing of the gears, seeing as it was only the tips that had got damaged and found that the motor pinion didn't mesh to the bottom of the teeth.

The motor fitted into a recess in the housing, so there wasn't any adjustment.

I shaved some of the plastic out of the recess to allow the motor to move over a fraction and elongated the motor mounting holes a little and added some washers larger than the screw heads to give more support..

I also found that the motor end plate was eccentric with the spindle, so I was able to mesh the gears right to the bottom of the teeth by turning it through 180 degrees.

I put it all back together after removing all the copperslip and using some proper grease. Copperslip is an antisieze product and is abrasive when used with moving parts, but was a bit miffed when the motor went backwards, I had carefully marked the positive terminal but little did I know I wasn't the first person to get to it. I had to do a bit of dismantling again. No I didn't get confused when I turned it through 180.

Well it fed like a dream, even with me trying to hold the feed roller back.

Can't wait to get the space back

Now to watch the videos and smarten up my welding a bit.

 

[mike 109444]

Result then Alan : ) It might be worth your while looking through the post on "wire jaming" or "bird nesting" and readup on the recomended setting of wire feed roller pressure as over pressure of the roller may cause bird nesting and result in excess load on the newly reformed nylon gears. Also check out the liner and tip, as something caused the gear to go in the first place (apart form poor assembly at factory!) BTW what size would you say the final output shaft of the gearbox (one the wire feed roller fits on) is?