Thread: Restoring Hafco T380A Thicknesser

Don't know if Knoxfield is close to you but these guys sound like fairly standard suppliers to industry which is all you need for basic bearings like you will be after. They even offer machining services too which may be of use.
The only thing that throws me is on the home page it says they have become a wholesaler, but I assume they still sell to the public.

FWIW most bearings should have the bearing number written on it.

this denotes the OD, ID and seal type usually, can punch those numbers into any online place and get a price.

All the bearings in it are just standard so are readily available from most places, while you have it apart, change the seals in the gearbox, they aren't standard and will probably need to be ordered, again most places will be able to get them, you will need to have them out to get the numbers and/or measure them. Just google "bearing service" and a raft of places come up in melbourne.
All not hard to do, I replaced the cutter head with a spiral one and while apart I decided to change them as it was all apart. I used a standard 80/90 gear oil for the gearbox and have had no problems.

Thanks guys for your answers. I appreciate the advice.

Hi BEM. Bearing Wholesalers in Bayswater, on Barry Street.

I've ordered from Eastern Bearings in Knoxfield. Primarily because they are in the same street as Mathews Timber so I could check out their current stock.
Steve at the front counter was quite friendly and down to earth.

Next, I need to find a lubricant for the chain gear.

Chain gear.jpg

It had grease on it but I'm wondering if I could use a spray lube like CRC TAC2. Can I use a spray or should I stick with grease? If grease, which one?

Cheers
Lyndon

I would just stick with a multipurpose grease like this one. Because the chains are very slow moving and not under huge load the grease with do the job easily.
Take the chains off and wipe them and the sprockets clean, then wipe a thin layer of grease along the chains and refit them.

Thanks for the recommendation Treecycle. I've already taken them off and cleaned them (and everything else too). I was wondering if I could use something like this "AMSOIL GPOR1CR Synthetic Polymeric Off-Road Grease". I don't need a large pot of it. I'd probably never get through the 500g pot you recommended.

Cheers

If you've already got that Amsoil grease you may as well use it. Just clean the chains and sprockets as best you can as the original grease was probably mineral based where as yours is synthetic and they are not supposed to be mixed, but considering the load I'm sure it will work fine. There is a little bit of Moly in your grease which is good for sliding surfaces which you will have inside the chain and where the rollers meet the sprocket teeth.
Like I said earlier, this is not a high stress or speed drive so as long as there is some lubricant on there it will be fine.

I haven't bought the grease yet. I just wanted something smaller. I cleaned the chains in some old petrol that I can't use in an engine. I'm really enjoying restoring the machine.

Since you have used petrol to clean the chains it might be wise to dunk the chain in oil, dry, or blow it off, then grease it. Grease is just oil in soap, and parts of a petrol-cleaned chain might run dry of lube for quite awhile before the grease gets into all the crevices.

If the chains are well isolated from dust and chips grease is fine. I use a dry spray lube on my chains (and anything else that has mating surfaces) that are exposed to less than perfect dust collection.

Thanks Greg. I'm new to the mechanical stuff. Obviously! I assume I'd have to use a synthetic oil if I'm using a synthetic grease.
What dry spray do you use, and how often? Questions, questions, questions.......

Cheers
Lyndon

A bicycle chain lube works pretty well. The newest ones are a dry wax which doesn’t turn into sawdust cement the way old grease can. I recently bought some LPS-1, which seems to do the same thing only more expensive.

Obviously if you can access the chains easily then an annual cleaning and re-greasing will do the trick