The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Lucius1958 wrote:Wear in the spindle bearings, perhaps?

Bill

Possibly. The spindle does have a lot play vertically as well. Sometimes it acts as if it has a spring in the base. Other times not at all.

Adjusted out the governor problem for now. The motor is going to come out this afternoon and I'll check the spindle position.

Raising the spindle seems to have worked. (Thanks for that tip) There is more play in the governor now due to the fact the gear on the spindle is riding at the top of the governor worm drive. It clatters now when the unit is almost out of power. A bit of fine tuning may be in order.

But now that the spindle is higher I just noticed the turn table does actually fit down into the ears in the spindle. It just rides the edges. Is that normal?!

Joe, no that's not normal, that may just be the trouble you have with the noise. It should seat completely down on the spindle. Maybe you can diagnose why it's not?

EDIT: I just checked one of my mechanisms, and the turntable does sit a bit high on the spindle. Not as high as than yours, though. I guess maybe the spindle taper is a little different than the turntable? I wonder if there were changes between the Model B and Model C mechanisms? I'll try to find out, but it could take some time.

Hopefully some others will chime in with their own, for comparison.

Best,
Fran

So I quieted the machine somewhat. Not fully, but it is livable for now.

I ended up dropping the spindle down as far as it would go without the start lever interfering with the table. This dropped the spindle gear to almost center with the governor worm gear. I moved the governor shaft far right and them adjusted the governor to sit farther left.

Somethings I noticed.

1) The ticking is louder when the spindle is under load. That load can be the turntable or just holding each side of the spindle with your fingers.

2) The turn table does NOT seat down on the spindle. I did a little filing on the notch and it dropped maybe a millimeter. It is being held in place by the taper of the spindle.

3) The governor has no side to side play on the shaft. However, it does have a large amount of play between the spindle gear and the governor shaft worm gear. You can easily move the governor back and forth without moving the spindle.

Joe, is your motor plate flat across the top, or does it have a large circular depression cast into it under the turntable?

Best,
Fran

It has a depression in the middle.

fran604g wrote:Joe, is your motor plate flat across the top, or does it have a large circular depression cast into it under the turntable?

Best,
Fran

BwanaJoe wrote:It has a depression in the middle.

fran604g wrote:Joe, is your motor plate flat across the top, or does it have a large circular depression cast into it under the turntable?

Best,
Fran

Thank you,
Fran

Joe,

I am not totally sure what your saying about the governor having to much play? There are small inserts on each end of the governor spindle holders that you can release with the screw in the cast iron at each end of the mechanism. You have to be careful if the spring is wound to not allow the spindle to come out of the ends or it will let the spring wind down violently and possibly break something. I release one of the screws and hold my finger over the little metal parts that that hold the spindle and apply slight pressure to see if that helps to clear up the noise. In general the edsions I have do create more rumbling noise when the motor is running down, it usually is not nearly as noticeable when under a wound spring. These motors can be rather vexing to get to operate quietly. But many of them are like that even after all these years so if you can come close to no noticeable noise it may be the best that motor is going to achieve at this point.

Larry

I don't know if it is too much play or not, it just seems like it has a lot of slop. If you grasp the weights and gently rock the governor back and forth you can get a lot movement without engaging the gear on the spindle.