Report from Grant Saviers on activities October 5, 2005

All, Allen and I spent 8 hours today working on the six clutches from his primary drive. The right reel CW and CCW clutches were taken apart earlier and all parts inside and outside were lightly bead blasted to remove rust. One clutch with the protruding coil form was machined coplaner to the interior surface on my mill. Two new 6201 bearings (without inner race shims) were pressed in to each of the three of the right reel assembly clutches. The two bearings matched the original double row bearing in width within 0.0003". Allen spent considerable effort to remove the left reel clutches from the shaft and to remove the woodruff keys which were rusted in place. Considerable rust was present inside more than one clutch. Bearings were rusted in place and required my 20 ton hydraulic press to remove (about 30% load). Unfortunately, one inner magnetic pole adhered to its coil and broke the wires leading to the slip rings. Some careful probing and xacto knife work exposed enough coil wire so we believe a solder repair is possible. The condition of the clutches leads me to believe that they have never been rebuilt. Of the six bearings removed thus far, two were very lumpy, solidified/no grease, two were lumpy, dried grease, and two were smooth with degraded grease. The shaft end bearings will also be replaced when the shafts are reinstalled in the drive. Correct woodruff keys were ordered. Replacement clutch powder (enough for 30 clutches = $150) was ordered from Placid Industries, Lake Placid, NY. It is 325 mesh 410 stainless steel ball shape. We hope that this powder will work and have carefully preserved as much of the existing clutch powder as possible. If we need to use the original powder, it will be necessary to screen it to remove larger wear particles and debris caused when the housings were contacting. Another clutch manufacturer was unable to provide us a graphite/iron powder. The raw punch block for making internal felt washers is complete. Next step is to turn the dies and punches to size. Our next work session is this Friday 9am to 2pm at my shop. Let me know if you will attend. The 1402 punch feed roller was machined per request to remove the wear irregularities. It is not hardened and was turned with carbide tooling. The other, lightly worn roller was then machined to within 0.0004" of the cleaned up diameter of the damaged roller. This causes the rollers to be about .011" under the size of the undamaged as provided gear end roller. The bearing on this shaft (608) should be replaced. The rollers are now about 1.5% undersize. I do not know the function of this shaft but since it is gear driven the smaller diameter might affect the card path timing. Grant