Cochester Master 2500 (Story so far)

[BigErn]

Evening everyone, a rare post from me but it may be of interest to some folk so thought Id stick some pictures and stuff on as I go along the way.

So the story so far is, I was looking to buy a lathe for the garage at home and a few month of looking but never saw anything local that was floating my boat. I happened to mention to a retired friend of mine that I was looking, and knowing he had a lathe of some description buried in the back of his garage that he used to use when he was building/fabricating custom motor bikes. He said he never used it anymore and pop up for a look at it. Well it was sat in the back with stuff piled on top of it, covered in swarf and grease and generally just bloody manky. He did plug it in and I saw it running, albeit very briefly as I saw no need to run it any longer than to see it function.

What I did notice was that it was very loud when the clutch was engaged and it was running the headstock gearing.

Fast forward to getting it home and in the garage, moved somewhere near where it is going to live and it got a wash down with some diesel and red scotchbrite to clean things up a bit. Then I took the top cover off and ran the motor to see if the oil pump to the top end was working, nope not a sniff. So the pump was removed and opened up and it had a few bits of swarf and crap in but no damage. Refit and fresh oil and the top end was getting oil again.

So running the lathe a little while with fresh oil getting up top the noise didnt change but I did notice that it was noteably quieter in reverse than forward. I looked at all gears for damage as best as I could with the top cover off and could see nothing wrong with anything, then I noticed one gear that runs free on a shaft was a very poor running fit and there were brass filings in the bottom of the headstock. That promted me to make the decision to make a start pulling things to bits, if nothing else this needs sorting out before the bushing wears away totally, if it already hadnt, and then it starts mangling the shaft.

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[BigErn]

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[BigErn]

Well Ive made a right balls up of putting pictures on, they are in no kind of order at all and I cant see most of them. What am I doing wrong?

Anyway, as it happens all of the bearings seem in good order as they have came out. No noise when spinning the shafts on them and no play in any of them. However when cleaning all of the sludge out of the bottom of the headstock I noticed what looked to be tiny needle bearings and a bit more cleaning I found a small cage too. Looking at them it appears to be bits of clutch rollers. I havent stripped the clutch assembly yet but one of the rollers had dropped out while I was removing it but there are too many bits to be just from that one, so maybe one has collapsed in the past and the bits are still left in or one, or more, have collapsed and been creating all the noise. Which would explain more noise on forward drive over reverse drive.

I will get the clutch assembly stripped next week and more pictures will follow.

Which leads me to a question for you all too, who is best to get good used/new Colchester parts from?

 

[eLuSiVeMiTe]

Best to upload images diectly to the post than linking to a gallery.
On desktop you can drag and drop an image
Or click upload a file below the text input window and select from a directory/camera roll.

Click insert image as the upload below text screen either as a batch or individually as you type.

 

[eLuSiVeMiTe]

@spencer 427 should be able to point you in the right direction for spares.

Enjoy your strip down. Currently have lathe no3 in bits.

 

[God mode restorations]

Well Ive made a right balls up of putting pictures on, they are in no kind of order at all and I cant see most of them. What am I doing wrong?

Anyway, as it happens all of the bearings seem in good order as they have came out. No noise when spinning the shafts on them and no play in any of them. However when cleaning all of the sludge out of the bottom of the headstock I noticed what looked to be tiny needle bearings and a bit more cleaning I found a small cage too. Looking at them it appears to be bits of clutch rollers. I havent stripped the clutch assembly yet but one of the rollers had dropped out while I was removing it but there are too many bits to be just from that one, so maybe one has collapsed in the past and the bits are still left in or one, or more, have collapsed and been creating all the noise. Which would explain more noise on forward drive over reverse drive.

I will get the clutch assembly stripped next week and more pictures will follow.

Which leads me to a question for you all too, who is best to get good used/new Colchester parts from?

Hi bigern.
Your best bet is to try Colchester lathe spares on 01206 240099. They have a website with listings of machines they are currently dismantling . You have to have patients with them as they have a massive amount of new and second hand parts but they are helpful . Parts for Colchester lathes are slowly rising in price and getting more difficult to find. The biggest problem with Colchesters is the headstock bearings. If they are nackared then it's a £4000 plus job to replace them as they are are only available for gamet bearings 600 group. They manufactured the bearings for Colchesters. I visited them and had a very interesting conversation. Serching eBay and other similar sites can help to as Colchesters are often sold with spares or repair .good luck with your machine and keep us posted on how you get on.

 

[BigErn]

Thanks for the input guys.

Ill try and add pics again.

 

[BigErn]

More

 

[BigErn]

So today I attacked the clucth assembly, which I failed to mention earlier is the suspected source of the excess bearing noise I was experiencing. I 95% knew this as I had removed all of the other shafts from the headstock but left this one in place till last, my reasoning was that from listening to it while it was complete and running the noise seemed more prominent in this area. Well having done that it allowed me to put the belt back on, run the motor and engage the clutch shaft briefly with nothing else being driven from it. This revealed the very noise I was looking for.

Now as I stripped the assembly down I carefully pulled the clutch rollers apart because, as you may recall by the photographs, I found bits of cage and roller and needle bearings lay in the sludge at the bottom of the headstock. 1 of the 6 rollers had all its needles in the cage, the others had missing ones here and there but fortunately I had fished enough out to rebuild those ones leaving only one roller with one needle missing out of its race. There are also 2, what seems to be aluminium, fabricated rollers that have been made for it. One is pretty chewed up and the other reasonably ok, I had a quick interweb search and cant seem to find these so maybe thats why someone made a couple. It may be an avenue to follow again but with better material maybe or make a steel one with a small bronze bushing inside?

Anyway a bit more check and play with things I discovered where the shaft joins and carries one set of the clutch plates, there is an internal bearing so put the shaft together and spin the bearing and a nice growling noise showed itself. Finally something that has reared its head as a worn bearing. I was beginning to get concerned as I took it all to bits that every bearing, although dirty, seemed quiet and had no play.

Thats it for now, Ill attempt to stick more pictures on for you all.

 

[BigErn]

Hopefully, if this works you will be able to see a couple of short clips. One is the lathe running, noteably loder in forward than reverse. The other is me spinning the bearing on the shaft.