Just a couple of things to consider the bearings may be full of gunk, they may need to be removed too clean and soak them. Grease, oil, dirt, goes hard over time and even if you think they are ok there is still a lot of years of potential dirt in there. If you can get the motors serviced be prepared for the bill, it may not be light. As far as I know the Ashland and the Bodine motors contain nothing that can not be replaced, even the armature can be rewound and the bearings are standard.grooveguy wrote:Wow! That Bad Boy doesn't look 'stock'; someone has modified that one bigtime, or somebody at the factory did a 'special' for who-knows what. I guess you could cut outside-in and then reverse direction and cut inside-out... kinda like streetcar tracks that cross over one another. Twice the playing time, but with some pops and ticks. Seriously, I wonder what that utility was for. The original Presto could cut either direction, I think there was a manual clutch to change screw rotation. Really beautiful machinery.
You may need a bearing puller, do some research, if that has not been covered above, your worst fear is to bend the shaft on the motor, if that happens it is shot. So take it easy and do not rush any of it.
The other thing we need to bear in mind is that we do not have or I am assuming we all do not have the original paperwork with our lathes, including the original bills showing purchase as well as specifications or a full set of instructions (which may have been additionally modified for the custom lathe).
Correct me if I am wrong Presto made a standard model and it could be modified upon reques, a lot of the oddities in various machines could be put down to that.
As for giving your left arm, as long as the lathe made its way to me that is a deal I could live with.
As for noise from motors there should be a lot of decoupling between the drive motor and the platter, it should be nothing to worry about. That drive system is the rolls-royce of drive systems. Give it all a good clean be careful in that gear box though, document it all the way. There may be a special tool for removing gears as well, which you may need. But should be similar method to removing gear box from a car.
I have to say if I was going to add two lathes my collection, this one and the Mystery lathe would be the other and yes I would gladly give your left arms for both of them