I have a non-automotive quandary/application I could use your help with: One of my (many) projects is fixing up and setting up some old over-head shaft driven machine tools. Most all of the machines can be arranged on the floor to have the driving pulleys all facing the same direction, with the exception of a big metal Planner (1890's-ish Whitcomb with a 10' long table), which when arranged how I would like it, has it's driving pulley perpendicular to the others. I might have enough headroom to put a twist in the belt, but another solution I'm looking at is adding an overhead right angle gear-box to redirect the shafting and pulley that will drive the machine. Given the cost of industrial gearboxes, and my desire to keep the arrangement somewhat period, I'm wondering if there's an old automotive rear-end that could be repurposed without too much internal modification? It would need to be a fixed differential, and ideally have little to no gearing ratio, as any ratio it does have would need to be counteracted or at least planned for with the shafting pulley sizes. It'll be running low RPM, likely around 300RPM, certainly never above 1000. Horsepower too would be around 10 or less for this one machine, and it's all being driven by flat leather and rubber belting, 2" to 6" wide. Making a custom gearbox is a possibility, but the bevel gears would be expensive to buy or make. An enclosed gearbox is also preferred as it will be overhead and maintained via a short ladder. I'm sure there was a time I could run down to the local salvage yard and find something that would work, but it doesn't seem like there's any modern axle's that fit this bill, and I want to be certain that I'm repurposing something "more common" like an old Model T axle, as compared to something rare that would be better served in a car/truck build.
Many Edwardian era chain drive cars and trucks had a thing called a bevel box. It turned power 90 degrees to feed the drive sprockets, and they were enclosed castings. I saw one on Duncan Pittaway's OX5 powered GN special. I have no knowledge as to original applications, but it's a start!
In order to get the 1 to 1 ratio in a car rear end would be difficult at best! But, you could source a high speed rear end, say around 2.47 to one. Then hold one axle and run through the spider gears that give you a 2 to 1 increase in speed. That will get you back to close to 1 to 1. You will still be a little above, but in you case , it should be close enough,maybe. Bones
I was afraid of that. I'm actually using a 235 inline 6 to power the machines, and am using pully reduction to drop the 1000 (or so) engine RPM to the desired overhead shaft RPM (around 200) and machine RPM (for the Whitcomb Planner I'm discussing here, 600RPM), so another possibility would be to have this rear-end/gearbox get belted directly to the motor before that reduction. Depending on what the ratio is, I'll see how big a deal it would be to have one "high-speed" line between the engine and the Whitcomb's gear-box. The main overhead shafts need to be slow as there's lots of belts, pulleys, and clutches in motion, and most are in Babbitt bearings that would gauld under higher RPM's. So removing the ratio aspect from the equation, are there any fixed diff rear ends out there that would be easier to find, or less desirable to custom builds? I'm envisioning something like the old ford banjo rear-ends as I could cut and weld the ends into some ceiling brackets. (I'm an early 50's car guy, so I'm not 100% up on when differential designs changed or which were more common)
I’d bet there are still a few old shops around, we had one recently close its doors, that ran all the equipment in the shop off one motor, same belt setup you are using, the equipment usually had 3 driven flat pulleys. My old Hendy lathe came from such a shop. I recall the right angle gear boxes in corners as the equipment was against 3 walls. Anyways, just reminiscing The 3 point rototiller my dad had for his tractor was a 2 to 1 box driven off the PTO. Be careful on the electric motor right angle drive boxes, once you start going over a unit spec’ed for 5HP they start getting costly. We’ve a 25HP driven auger at work, I recall the replacement box was several thousand dollars.
If your using the 235 engine would having the transmission bolted to it and run the diff off that ? you could get some reduction from the transmission, not sure on the diff but something with low highway gearing seems to be the answer . euro cars ( jag and bmw ) in particular had cars geared for highway driving while keeping the rpm’s low .
@1953naegle Depends on how much torque you need to handle! O/T Toyota Vans have a 90deg gearbox in the steering column for Forward Mounted Controls These go back to a R& P that has the pinion on the front side.
All my machines came from different places, and most had been modified to have individual motors, but I didn't like how they had been modified (not very elegant and negated function in some cases), and decided to go back to the way they were. It started with a couple small machines in my garage at home, and now has grown to the point that I'm working on building a dedicated shed just for the line-shaft set-up. I looked at rotary mower gear boxes, which could work, but the cheapest ones are around $300 (not terrible, but enough to second-guess a gamble). Funny thing is I bought a mower deck a few year back that needed almost everything replaced EXCEPT the gearbox, including splicing in a lot of steel to the deck, and I made a decent mower out of it and I think I broke even on the investment, but for the same money I probably could have bought something else in better shape and used that gearbox here... hindsight and all.
I removed the transmission and am in the process of mounting the main driving pulley to the back of the clutch housing, mainly to simplify things and save space as it would only ever be in one speed (accidentally putting it in a higher speed could do damage), but having it's reduction would help. With multiple machines tied together, the engine will need to be set at a certain running speed, and any speed changes made to each individual machine (each one has it's own gearbox and/or step pulleys).
Thanks for all the input guys! There's some good options here. One other thing to add to the wish-list too I guess. The shafting and pulley ID's are all between 1 1/4" and 1 1/2" diameter with square keys and set-screws, so anything else (smaller diameters or tapered and splined connections) would likely need to be adapted to that system.
If you see an old Elgin sweeper in your favorite wrecking yard; the side broom upper housing would make a pretty strong 90 degree box.
I'm thinking that there are a lot of 90 degree gear boxes around if you think a bit outside the box and start looking. Old farm equipment as mentined before may be a good source. A local farm equipment manufacture used Mopar car transmissions with the flange on the back as gear boxes on their Manure spreader beds for trucks for years. I think they had a standing order for every one that was good that showed up at the wrecking yard next door . A truck granny 4 speed with the park brake /emergency brake hub on the back might work as a gear reduction box if you drive it off the back end with a belt. The local machine shop had belt driven equipment when I was a kid and that always looked like a good way to loose a few fingers as they would set the belts to running on the pulleys they wanted them to with the main shaft turning. that shaft never stopped turning all day long as far as I know.
For reference, here's some shots of the machine I want the right angle gear box for. It's got a long ways to go for sure. This is the table, which slides back and forth on the V-ways of the machines base (removed for transport). This is the other work head, which has been rebuilt and now sits waiting for the rest of the machine to look the same. This is the overhead jack-shaft that drives the machine. The big pulley and the one beside it both connect to the machine via two belts and which one is active dictates forward movement, or faster reverse movement. I originally thought about incorporating the right angle drive to this ***embly. The shaft is around 1 1/2" diameter. The motor that WAS on this machine when I got it was a big 7.5HP thing, but after conferring with some other planer owners, this machine would likely only need 4 or 5HP. David Richards on Youtube has a little older Whitcomb planer than mine. Mine has some later design changes, and the second work head, but otherwise this is one in motion. I realize it's off topic for this forum, so I appreciate the ideas and feedback. A lot of these old machines when removed from over-head belt drive were given car or truck transmissions for speed changes, so conceptually an old truck rear end would fit right in as a right angle drive.
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