The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hi Marcel

Yes, it was with the No. 52 I had problems lining the spout up. The spout is a very tiny diameter tube and it is very flexible / movable at the top end as it is unsupported when that top plate has been removed. When I lowered the top plate down onto the casting to screw it all back together, I noted that the end of the spout had moved slightly and wouldn't always line up with the aperture in the top plate and therefore the oil lubrication system would not work. I found it very difficult to lower the top down whilst managing to view the end of the spout and the aperture into which it slots. It's in shadow under normal lighting conditions and both pieces are very small to see in a narrowing space. If the spout doesn't connect to the aperture it won't work. A tiny fraction of movement in that tube when you lower the top plate down onto it and it will not line up with that tiny aperture. It's near impossible to line the spout up perfectly plumb vertically and keep it there whilst you just drop the top plate over it without catching the end of the spout and knocking it slightly to one side - in my humble experience anyway! I liken the process to attempting to slot a penny into a coin-slot machine when the penny is suspended vertically on its edge using a dab of plasticine and you're holding an arcade machine upstand down lowering it onto the coin: there comes a moment when you can no longer easily see the coin and it can very easily be knocked over before it's found the slot.

You obviously managed it very easily. So what is the knack to doing this successfully on first attempt? Did I miss something very obvious? It can't have been that difficult to do in a factory, can it?

Regards,

Steve

Steve wrote:Wouldn't it take something like paraffin to do that anyway, and not simply oil?

In my experience, oil (at too high a level and therefore getting inside the barrels) will act like paraffin from the point of view of "diluting" or mixing with the grease until it eventually forms a substance with a viscosity of somewhere between the two which will then not do either job properly. It therefore seems sensible to keep the oil level at all times below the bottom of the spring barrels.

Hi Steve

The rising tube that you talk of, mine was very rigid. I moved the tube when I undid the screws to clean out the oil reservoir, when finished I just lined it back up with the screw down clamp did it up and that was it, all went together easy. Does you tube have a clamp to hold it down to the base?

Regards Marcel

Marcel

What screws did you remove to clean out the reservoir? I only remember cleaning the inside of the casting visible once the top-plate was off. My reservoir is probably still full of old oil mixed with the new! If you could take some pictures of the inside, that would be helpful to everyone.

I don't remember how the tube in my machine is fixed. All I know is that the 'top' end is flexible and is only held in place by the securing of it into the aperture of the top-plate.

Steve

Hi Steve

The round disc in the photo is the reservoir cover. I took this photo prior to cleaning, thats all the oil that was in the machine when I got it. I also found that the bearing in the pump piston was seized inside the piston.

Regards Marcel

Here is another before undoing the screws.

Hi

Here are the pictures as promised.

Regards Marcel

Thanks, Marcel, for those excellent pictures. I'm certain a few of us will save and archive those photos for future reference. They appear to hold the key to several questions I'm not even qualified to ask, let alone answer!

I can see now that I missed the reservoir altogether when I took my motor apart. I managed to free up that piston without even removing it. In fact, had it not been for the position it was frozen in, I doubt I'd have even known what it was. It's possible now when viewing your motor for me to say that I have probably over-filled my casing with oil. Somehow though oil does not seep out through the winding shaft. HOWEVER, on removing the back of my machine I have noticed several 'dried' oil runs over and along the top and back of my horn. Does this indicate that the oil should be above that line or has the machine been moved with the winder removed and the motor still insitu. It is very possible knowing the history of the machine.

Marcel,

I've just had a thought. Looking at that 'hidden' and capped off reservoir, do you think that is the only place the oil should be? Otherwise, why does it even need to exist? I'm wondering if we've all got it wrong with all our previous speculation. I never spotted that reservoir so assumed (I now think incorrectly) that the purpose of that large enclosed motor casing was to fill it with oil up to the gear level. Now looking at it again I'm not quite so convinced. Surely those small bottles of original oil never contained enough to float the whole of the bottom of the casting AND the small reservoir? In that case I'm thinking that the bottles originally supplied with the machines were intended to simply fill that tiny reservoir before the cap is screwed on. The purpose of the enclosure to the motor is therefore ONLY to contain the splashes of oil that normally dissipate from an oiled governor. The oil is then contained and gradually falls back into the 'sump' or central reservoir.

These motors need no more oil than their predecessors so I now think the idea of semi-filling the bottom of the large casting is superfluous to say the least. I think the bottom of the motor casing should be 'dry' apart from the sunken and capped off reservoir. Otherwise what would be the purpose of this reservoir anyway? What do you think? Also the often mentioned problem of grease 'flushing' from the spring barrels doesn't even come into the equation.

Regards

Steve

I would recomend Shell vitrea 25 or Shell vitrea 27.
Its bit hard to get.But alternative could be light medical grade
of mineral oil found at most drug stores.