Years back I managed to find one of those “dream” home shop machinery deals. An Emco Maximat V10P lathe was sitting in a dusty pile at the back of a bike shop in Alameda, CA. This is a very much sought-after home shop machine. The shop owner said the machine was taking up space, so we made a deal and it followed me home for a more-than-fair price. It’s been a great lathe, but was in far from tip-top shape and has needed some TLC and upgrades. One thing that I’d been meaning to address for long time, is that oil constantly dribbled out of the quick-change gearbox onto my bench. What follows details that fix.
Emco Maximat V10P after most of the fixes/upgrades
The problem was that each day I would find new puddle of oil on the bench under the QC gearbox. The leak was traced to a bearing on the left side of the QC (quick change) gearbox.
Left side of QC gearbox. The bearing just left of center was leaking gearbox oil.Inside the gearbox with the lid off. Oil mostly, but not entirely, drained.Lathe bed with gearbox off. The lead screw and drive shaft have to be removed before pulling the gear box. The oil leak looked like it was coming the from the back by the lower mounting , but that was just oil wicking there from the bearing before dripping to the bench.Close up of the guilty bearing. The “worm” wrapped around the inner race is the chewed up seal.Most of the shafts and bearings came out with light taps or pressure, but the stubborn ones required gentle heating of the box with propane followed by some coaxing with a home-made bearing press.QC box cleaned out and ready to be reassembled.New bearing in place. Some light heating and my ghetto 2×4 lumber bearing press helped get it in.New gasket cut for the right side cover. The use of a gasket implies that the gears in here are maybe supposed to get oil from the gearbox, though I didn’t see any oil and found these gears greased. I wasn’t sure what was correct (grease or oil), so I put in clean grease and built it back up the way I found it.Regreased gears in right-side gearbox cover.
The rest of the job was just bolting things back together. NO MORE LEAK!
Is it absolutely necessary to remove the lead screw and feed shafts to get the Norton box off? As it seems the shafts are supported in the side housing and do not seem to have any support from the Norton box other than the side housing. I appear to possibly have a damaged gear in this housing and due to limited space would prefer not to remove these shafts unless absolutely necessary. I look forward to your reply.
Thanks,
Neil
Curious what bike shop in Alameda CA you found this at? I work in Alameda and just got a V10P as well. How time consuming is to swap out the gearbox (remove and reinstall the whole unit)?
lensprojects 
Hi.
I stumbled over this article. Really nice reading. Great job ! What a fantastic piece of machinery you came across. Congrats !
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Is it absolutely necessary to remove the lead screw and feed shafts to get the Norton box off? As it seems the shafts are supported in the side housing and do not seem to have any support from the Norton box other than the side housing. I appear to possibly have a damaged gear in this housing and due to limited space would prefer not to remove these shafts unless absolutely necessary. I look forward to your reply.
Thanks,
Neil
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Curious what bike shop in Alameda CA you found this at? I work in Alameda and just got a V10P as well. How time consuming is to swap out the gearbox (remove and reinstall the whole unit)?
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I remember only that it was a little no-name place that only sold recumbents.
I’d say the gear box job was time consuming but not hard. I went very slow, especially when applying heat to the box.
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