Stripping the Gears - 21 September to 3 October
Brian Wilcockson, Jon Crocker and Steve Broadhurst, set about opening the right-hand side gear box first.
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The gears were inspected. The wear on the gears from the first 23 years (middle image) is still evident as a groove along the full length of the teeth. The wear on the reverse side (next two images) is obvious with severe pitting of the teeth.
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The gears were then removed.
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The bearings on the new gears were put in place.
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Robert Semlitzky, Senior Project Engineer from SKF Australia, supervised the bearing replacement.
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The new gears were then put into the gear box. Ollie Dowd, from Narrabri, was present to give a hand.
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Next, the left-hand side gear box was stripped. First, the resetter box was carefully removed by Andrew Hunt.
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The gears were removed. Some rust damage on the bearings was evident.
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Before the lid was placed back on the right-hand side gear box, oil was pumped over the gears.
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The gears were then run for several hours. A drill was used to turn the gears.
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Next, the same was done on the left-hand side gear box.
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Jon Crocker painted the gear boxes prior to them being re-installed on the telescope.
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