Oil fill mark on presto 8dg?

[sameal]

Does anybody know where the oil fill mark is? Mine doesnt have one.

I got all the oil and im trying to keep track how much comes out, but without the fill mark i have no idea if whats in there is even correct.

[sameal]

I put it too about half of the visible surface in the fill tube.

Im hoping thats good.

[audiocarver]

The gear box takes 1 pint, from empty.

You basically want the oil to fill above where the 33 rpm worm gear shaft sits horizontal.


Use SAE30/ISO100 Machine Oil only! You can find it at McMaster Carr.

[sameal]

I filled it with 5w-30 mobil super high mileage.

Should i drain it and get iso100 or is it roughly the same?

The oil that came out looked the same and felt like it had the same viscosity. I got a pic of the old oil

[sameal]

It hasnt been powered on yet, so if i filled it with the wrong fluid i could get it out of there with minimal pain i think. I also didnt fill it the whole way either.

Is compressor oil a better idea? For the same reasons as a compressor? ( no filter in the system?)

It may also not be a bad idea for me to open it up and clean it, judging by the color of the fluid that came out of it.

[audiocarver]

Yes, drain the engine oil out. You can flush it with machine oil and fill, and it should be fine.

That old oil looks nasty! You're probably the first person to change it in 50years! Presto recommended changing it every 180 hours/ six months.

That's true, you don't need multi viscosity oil here as your not going to use your lathe in sub zero weather.......but in Wisconsin, maybe!? Ha...Ha!

And yes, since there is no filter, you don't need the detergents in the oil either; just want the particles to fall to the bottom and have clean oil up top where the gears are. When you change the oil, all the crap will flow out with it from the bottom.

I can not comment about using compressor oils as some of them maybe ok to use here. For example, I use Mobil DTE Heavy, which is a SAE30 general purpose machine/circulating oil that can be used in some air compressors and vacuum pumps, but other oils may not. If you can find a general purpose machine/circulating SAE30 oil, you will be fine.

The electric motors used a couple of drops of SAE10 oil every 60-80 hours.

[sameal]

Its actually a balmy 36 degrees here right now. Im in the middle of replacing my trucks front hubs and i think i smell someone grilling!

Oh yeah, the old oil is way past its date.

With the motors i picked up some singer sewing machine oil. I used that on an ampex 350 with the same bodine motors and it seemed to work good.

So i will drain what i got in there and put some dte in.

Im looking at these motor start caps @3.75mf and the closest i can get is 5mf. I think thats still in the 20% is it? Tolerence you can play over?

[sameal]

Well, in my oil mishap i built two really useful items for filling/removing oil from the motor assembly.

Im sure owing the machine youll notice its pretty hard to drain/fill without getting oil everywhere thanks to the locations of the plugs.

So for filling, i took a little candy funnel, a bic pen tip, and a section of 3/8ths o.d. tubing and made a spout.(in hindsight, id really like a larger funnel.) It fits perfectly through the access holes and in the threaded plug hole.

Then for draining, i got a rubber stopper, and drilled a hole through the center to squeeze in an 1/4th copper tube half-way in the stopper. I just open the drain port and quick as can shove the stopper in. Let gravity pick up the rest.

[symatic]

this is making me think i should probably open my gearbox and fully clean/service it.....

[sameal]

this is making me think i should probably open my gearbox and fully clean/service it.....

In what condition and where did you find your machine? When was the lasg time it was operated?

I would just to look at it and see everything is good. But you also have to be pretty careful in there with the gears and bearings and such in it. You need some oil on hand as well.

The manual has an exploded view of the gearbox, i highly suggest getting that beforehand.

[symatic]

I just lucked out and got put in contact with a guy who owns the Lathe but couldnt do anything with it for various reason, so he let me take it and work on it. It's still "his" but i'm operating it and fixing it up.

the condition seems ok, but i dunno on what scale i'm working to

last time it was operated properly was a while back, but i've been ticnkering with it for a while, probably it has a few hours of use now, having been sat pretty still for anywhere between a few years and a few decades.

where can I get a copy of the manual?

Cheers!

[sameal]

I just lucked out and got put in contact with a guy who owns the Lathe but couldnt do anything with it for various reason, so he let me take it and work on it. It's still "his" but i'm operating it and fixing it up.

the condition seems ok, but i dunno on what scale i'm working to

last time it was operated properly was a while back, but i've been ticnkering with it for a while, probably it has a few hours of use now, having been sat pretty still for anywhere between a few years and a few decades.

where can I get a copy of the manual?

Cheers!

I would look at. But that's me. I pop the lid on all the gear that comes through here, new/used/borrowed

Alan graves can get you a copy of the manual.