Harbor Freight 9 x 20 Lathe Cross Feed Repair Part

[marksbug]

great work, I made one for the compound , and added bearings to it. if I do one for the cross slide Ill also add bearings to it.
as for the gears , mine were off center.... witch made it loud as hell. I bushed them in the center. the key way bush thats in them is the issue.( bushing with built in key way).mine is the 9x20 enco model.the last of the enco **** I got it about a month beofre they anounced they were closing the doors( parrent company MSC got tired of loosing oh somany sales for half priced stuff...of coarse the half priced was also less that half the quality on most of the enco crap in the last few years) I ve done a lot to it to make it better, it runs oh so quiet now. I was thinking about a variable speed. flebay has some seweing machine motors with controllers at a good price( industrial machines 700~1000 watt stuff) I dont know what it would take to do the swap,Ill probably never do it. but it was a thought. I would like to make 2 spacers to space the head stock up and the tail stock too....but this thing is so effing flexey I probably wont do that either. Ive pulled most all of it appart when I get it new and fixed most everything and moly lubed lotsa stuff. some functions did not work at all... I did redrill the cross slide base to spread the bolts appart for a more steady rest. but the compound is so small the flex in it is...not good.adjusting the jibs helps but if you really want it to flex less you need to snug up the jibs so there is no movement... Im working on putting a lead screw cover on it soon i hope. I also have a dro with glass scales for it Ill install at some point. but the cross slide & glass scale..well not a lot of room there.I may just use a stainless caliper type scale for it, but thats nowhere near as accurate..but with the flex this has...that wont be a issue..( rimshot!) .the worm gear wasent quite right I reworked it.it may last.so far so good. I need to make a reverser for the lead screw. I did add a start stop button/emergency stop right there eazy and faster and no reaching over the machine to hit it. there is massive build up of bondo&crap under the bead, thus the tail stock dont slide for poop,cleaned all that real good. and added a rat**** rench to the tail stock for quick eazy lock&unlock movement. these lathes are real poop, butt some work and it's ok. my 30 year old speedway( homier tools) 7x14 mini lathe is 2x the quality of this thing... I do realize if I had a 3/4~1" thick steel plate 20x12" and fliped the lathe over and milled the bottom pads square to each other and square to the ways. then mounted it firmley to the steel plate it would be much much stiffer....but I dont see that happening.I thought about a cast aluminum plate for it.I did make a big tray the lathe sits insde nicley to contain all shavings&liquid should I decide on spray lube/cooling. basicly just like the one my 7x14 mini lather has. it was all cut out then pressbrake to form it. I added a 1/2" angle iron end to end on the front side to get rid of any flex there. it all worked out great. I realize I need a bigger lathe, but this is what I could afford 3 years ago...