Ok, today I got my apron mostly reassembled. There were a couple of parts that needed to be replaced. Thanks to the shop at work I was able to turn these while without a lathe...
First up is the Idler bushing on the Cross feed clutch gear. This is just a simple stepped bronze bushing, but the walls are fairly thick, so I couldn't find an off the shelf one to modify. I used a 2" drop as a starting point and just whittled away.
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| New bushing (pressed into gear) and old one for reference |
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The next item to be replaced was the pinion shaft that rides on the rack. The gear teeth were worn out and the shaft had about .002"-.003" of wear at the bearing surfaces. I bought a new 20 tooth gear and made a sleeve to fit over the back to get the length and diameter to be the same as the old one. I then made a replacement shaft out of pre-hardened 4140. I think this will be my go-to shaft material for future projects. I used a carbide insert and as long as I didn't try to take too shallow a cut, I could get a really nice surface finish. I turned the main shaft down to 0.687" and the stub to 0.501 to give a decent prss fit into the gear. One slight modification over the original design was the key. The Clausing shaft has a #3 woodruff key, but I couldn't find the right size cutter at work. So I made a flat key instead.
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| Old Pinion (top) and new parts |
New Pinion assembly (Top) and Original for comparison. |
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After the parts were done, it was time to put the whole thing back together.
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| Front of the rejuvinated apron |
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| Half Nuts - Before |
Rear View - After |
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| Top View - Before |
Top View - After |
I decided to leave the handles unpainted for now. I think the clutch handle looks much better now, but I am not sure about the half nut handle yet. I am still waiting for some good weather in Pennsylvania so that my source can finally get the worm gear out of storage. Also, at some point I am going to have to figure out how to rework/replace the half nuts, since the threads are pretty worn out.
