As my mill is now 18 years old, it had a birthday on ground hog day, I have been watching the feed chain start to sag a little.
And I have tightened up my chain by turning the 3/4" nuts on the tail stock tension adjustment rod to bring it back up to the proper level according to the manual or video that I have read or seen.
But I have now, again, run out of threads on my tension adjustment tail stock rod. It has been a while since I had to do this but I took out my 4" grinder and ground off a couple of heads on a link of my chain so that I could drop out one pair and move my master link down a couple.
This gave me more threads on my tension adjustment rod. So that I could bring it back up and at the right height.
Have any of you ever had to do this?
I think I should lube it more often then I do.
I was using it a while ago, and the little guard that fits under the battery box cover and over the drive chain sprockets kept falling off. I thought it was because of the chain being too loose. So I left it off, for the last month or so.
I put it back on today and we'll see if it jumps off on Monday.
Jim Rogers.
if its jumping off there is a reason its doing it. maybe last month you could have found the cause and fixed then without doing further and more costly repairs. hopefully you caught things in time
Quote from: Jim_Rogers on March 31, 2012, 05:14:12 PM
As my mill is now 18 years old, it had a birthday on ground hog day, I have been watching the feed chain start to sag a little.
But I have now, again, run out of threads on my tension adjustment tail stock rod. It has been a while since I had to do this but I took out my 4" grinder and ground off a couple of heads on a link of my chain so that I could drop out one pair and move my master link down a couple.
Have any of you ever had to do this?
I think I should lube it more often then I do.
Jim Rogers.
Jim; We had to take a couple of links out of my FIL's LT40G18 Manual mill a couple of years ago.
His mill has 3K + hours on it, I don't know exactly.
My mill still has quite a bit of adjustment in it.
My mill just turned 1,601.0 hours, so it's still in the process of being broken in.
I figured that, like a motorcycle sprocket & chain, when you change one, you also change the other.
I don't think it would be much of a job to replace them.
I usually wipe my chain down with ATF every 50 hours, when I do the regular grease job.
If the mill gets rained on, I'll either wipe it down again with ATF or spray it with penetrating oil.
That chain does stretch. Two years ago I had to replace it as well as the sprockets, shafts, and bearings.
Here is a LINK (https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,43505.msg628133.html#msg62813) to my sprocket replacement.
Jim,probibly the time for rechainning is approaching.A new chain has little play sideways as they wear they will have more play and allignment becomes more critical.Check sprockets too,old and new chain parts don't go well with each outher.Check the number on the chain its all standard and may be cheaper to buy a reel of it or at least have the parts on hand. Frank C.
In my case, it was cheaper to order it from WM and pay shipping than it was for me to buy it locally. I was strongly advised by FF folks here not to mix old and new sprockets/chain.
we have an LT 70 and a 3500 running 50 hours / week every week. the 70 has over 13000 hrs and the 3500 is nearing 4500. the 3500 replaced the LT300 we had with over 10000 hours on it. i have worked on lots of drive chains. replace the chain and sprockets at the same time. it is a common # 50 roller chain. DON'T use the cheep chain from discount places ( I have made that mistake) Buy it from Woodmizer or any place that has high quality chain. American Japanese or European made NOT CHINA. our one sawyer puts ATF on the chain every week and the other one trys his best to never do it until you tell him too.
Woody
Every morning, I oil all chains, mast, and the track oiler felt with ATF before I begin a day's work. The guide arm chain, etc. gets silicone spray. This is simply a part of my start up routine.
Chains don't "stretch", they wear. The LT40 uses #40 roller chain which has 1/2" pitch. The chain is about 23' long so you have roughly 550 pivoting joints. If each joint wears 5/1000 of an inch, that's 2-3/4 inches over the entire chain. That amount of wear is not unreasonable after several thousand hours of sawing. If you aren't lubricating your chain according to manufacturer's recommendations, you will easily get double or triple this amount of wear.
Each joint in a piece of roller chain has a small roller. Ideally the roller just drops into the sprocket because the rollers that are already engaged position the next roller in exactly the right place. The only pivoting happens when the chain "bends" around the sprocket. But if your chain is worn the rollers don't quite line up when they leave and enter the sprocket so now they have to roll their way in and out. That means extra wear on the sprocket.
If you aren't lubricating your chain properly, the rollers will seize up and the chain will slide into the sprocket, causing even more wear on both the sprocket and the roller.
In case you haven't got the hint by now, oil your chain! ;D ;D