[cheesy]

The project that made a lot of chips took three attempts to get right.

Sometime in the lathes' past, the left end of the countershaft was modified to adapt a new driven pulley. In order to make it work, the grease seals and retainers were tossed. I figured that out the first time I lubed the new countershaft and not only got gobs of grease on the wall behind the lathe, got the same gobs of grease on my shirt and on my face. I was able to find repo's of the thick felt seals but no retainers. I figured I might be able to make something out of a couple of engine freeze plugs.

It looked good on paper. First problem was NAPA. The new hired help was useless in even looking up 1 5/8" od plugs without a make/model/year. Auto Zone had them on the shelf. Second was that the back of the plugs were concave, which made them too thick. That screwed with the belt alignment. Facing the backs flat helped, but not enough. So, the first two attempts went into the 'Experience Pile'. This is why I always buy extras.

Plan B. I started by facing off the concave portion on the back of the plug until I took off enough to get a hole. I bored the hole to .750 to fit over the shaft. I then dug in the small box of cutting tools that came with the lathe and found something I could use as a cut-off tool. I basically separated the ring from the back of the freeze plug. The back of the freeze plug and felt seal went between the right side of the bearing housing and the Hi-Low selector. The other felt seal fit in the ring and that was placed between the drive pulley and left side of the bearing housing.

It must have worked, no more grease goblins flying at me or making a mess of the wall.