Ken,
Jim has a good diagnostic plan. I suspect it is the gearbox also.The gearbox
on your MDXMDPL has a worm gear and they need to be
drained and relubed periodically. Preferably with synthetic lube as Jim
stated. The original gear lube is very dirty if it has never been changed
in 19 years and is probably making the noise. The worm gears do a sliding mesh
when they rotate and the sliding surfaces gradually wear down. The wear is
accelerated as the lube gets dirtier. I am usually pretty regular about
maintenance
greasing all the grease fittings, etc every year but overlooked gearbox on my
MDX589MDPL. I drained it and the lube was very dirty. I drained it and
refilled it
with synthetic and ran it for a few minutes, drained it again and filled it
again with
synthetic. Hub City, the makers of the worm gear boxes on our MDPL's,
recommended doing the flush with a synthetic lube or their synthetic flush
oil.I opted to use the same synthetic lube for flushing. They said the
synthetic lube is
not compatible with the petroleum based lube that was in the gear box
originally
and they recommended a flush. They highly recommended going to a synthetic
lube.I noticed the gearbox only got slightly warm when raising or lowering the
tower after goingto the synthetic. Before it would get hot to the touch.
Even if the noise source doesnt turn out to be from the gear box it would be a
good ideato change the lube anyway. Let us know what you find !
73,BobK6UJ
From: Jim Thomson <jim.thom@telus.net>
To: towertalk@contesting.com
Sent: Sunday, February 5, 2017 6:17 AM
Subject: [TowerTalk] US Tower making clinking noise
Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2017 07:16:22 -0500
From: "Kenneth Sobel" <kenxxx@optonline.net>
To: <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: [TowerTalk] US Tower making clinking noise
my us tower hdx-572mdpl is 19 years old.
now it makes a continuous clinking noise when it is raised or lowered.
The noise comes from either the flywheel or the flywheel shaft or the gear box.
I cannot determine exactly where.
It sounds like high frequency as the shaft rotates. Not a grinding noise.
otherwise the tower raises and lowers without any problem.
The motor, motor shaft sheave, and belt are new.
Is this something serious?
de Ken W3JJ
## temp remove the belt. Then operate the motor in both CW and also CCW.
If it runs smooth, its probably the gear box. In which case you might want to
replace the
gear box oil with new oil....and pref synthetic. If it still screwed, either
replace the gear box, or
get it rebuilt.
## also, with or without the belt off, you should be able to easily turn the
big pulley by hand, and
make the tower go up or down. If the gears get mashed inside the gear box,
then you are in a mess.
It will be stuck, and you wont be able to raise..or lower the tower. And thats
not what you want if the
tower is even partially extended. In that case, the bottom of the 2nd section
needs some steel below it
on 3 sides, to take the weight, while you remove the chain and gear box.
## get it all looked after now, before you get into a gong show down the road.
Jim VE7RF
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