Little Help? Old tool

[Cliff]

LEMPCO REAMER DRIVE

It's heavy  cast iron   right angle drive with  30-1 reduction

I know how to put it to use.  IT's a right angle drive with enormous speed reduction  (AKA power amplification).

Picked it up for $45 

It is old. maybe 90 years old.  Seems nice and tight.

Thing is I haven't a clue why they called it a Reamer Drive.

There was a Lempco Evans Reamer company making weird looking reamers with the reamer part in the middle of a shaft and  a square drive https://www.tzsupplies.com/tool-lempco-reamer-381aa-size-i2512844/

Possibly  they made it to support their  new fangled die stamping sets that were supposed to be very fast and  had  ball bearing  posts.

This drive came  off of a farm in Florida.

 

 

[HandyDan]

Back in the day cars, trucks, forklifts etc all used straight axles with king pins and bushings for the steering knuckles to turn on.  We used adjustable hand reamers to fit the new bushings to the king pins when they needed replaced.  They were square drive and it was a tedious job running them through by hand.  I doubt this is where your drive unit was used but it could have been at the factory where the axles were made.  They later went to needle bearings and most have gone to a tapered bearing set up now.

 

 

[Cliff]

19 hours ago, HandyDan said:

Back in the day cars, trucks, forklifts etc all used straight axles with king pins and bushings for the steering knuckles to turn on.  We used adjustable hand reamers to fit the new bushings to the king pins when they needed replaced.  They were square drive and it was a tedious job running them through by hand.  I doubt this is where your drive unit was used but it could have been at the factory where the axles were made.  They later went to needle bearings and most have gone to a tapered bearing set up now.

 

 

 That is a good contender.  thanks

[John Morris]

Moved from Free For All to Old Metal Working Machinery. Link to this topic left in Free For ALL.