Warco Super Major Milling Machine – Stripping Gearbox

[Lee Jones 6Participant @leejones6]

[Lee Jones 6Participant @leejones6]

You know those jobs you wish you had never started!!

So when pushing the mill, the gears can make a tremendous knocking sound.

Being the inquisitive type I really wanted to find out what's going on. With a view to identifying any potential issue early and thus prevent any further, potentially irrecoverable, damage.

On my Harrison M300 lathe, viewing the gearbox is a simple matter of loosening a few cap-head screws and lifting off the top plate.

The Mill looked a little more involved, but not a lot more (spoiler: I was wrong)!

Remove face plate and dials:

Remove the motor:

Remove the 6 cap-heads and simply lift the top plate.

Ah, balls! Looks like the gears get lifted out with the top plate.

Have a quick peek inside, then put the plate back on.

After much; pushing, pulling, bashing (rubber mallet) and screwing (using them as a press, it went back on.

Put everything back together and forget the the whole thing.

Ah balls! The 1, 2, 3 gear selector has disengaged !!!

Re-strip – this time we need to go big. In for a penny …

Taking another look at the exploded view parts list to locate all of the curclips and bearings.

Now we play a little game of 'jimmy up the plate and bash down the gear shafts' using pin followers (so as to avoid lifting all the gears out before I've had a good look at them).

Success:

Now time to drop the oil.

Ah balls! Dropped the plug and overwhelmed the funnel.

Oil everywhere. All over the floor and contaminated the cutting fluid system:

Gears out:

Nothing appears out of sorts. No worn teeth. Everything looks tight and in good order.

Time to put it all back together again.

Also think I found the source of the clattering. There's a plate at the back of the mill head which protects the screw. A little grub screw keeps it in place which was pretty loose:

Once we're all back together, I'll give it a test by removing it during a heavy cut.

Fingers crossed!

[John BaronParticipant @johnbaron31275]

Hi Lee,

A very nice breakdown of the gearbox and components. Thanks for posting !

That duplex gear just behind the spindle that is moved by the selector arm on yours is the one that was plastic on mine, the one that I replace with a steel one.

[Lee Jones 6Participant @leejones6]

Ah yes, good idea. Steel for the win!

[Phillip SlatteryParticipant @phillipslattery23566]

Great little write up and or warning 😛

What do you think of the mill ?

[Lee Jones 6Participant @leejones6]

To be honest, I don't have anything to compare it to.

It's doing what I require of it. Although it is still noisy during some operations.

[Jordi TomasParticipant @jorditomas]

Hi,

I have a chinese milling machine, whith the head as this one Warco, but with the round colum. And I would like to ask you if anyone know wich model is this Warco, in order to ask if is possible to buy the squared column individually?

Thanks

[wendy jacksonParticipant @wendyjackson]

Hi jordi. Sorry but round and square column are totally different and nothing is interchangeable.

[larry phelan 1Participant @larryphelan1]

From looking at this, seems like a good idea to leave my mill alone !

As I said before Let sleeping dogs lie !! If it aint broke, dont fix it.

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