5 lb stuffer gear upgrade not going well

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boykjo

Renowned Sausage Maker
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Apr 28, 2010
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Raleigh,NC
I am replacing my northern tool plastic stuffer gears with the hardened gears from LEM.... All was looking good till I went to thread the larger gear to the acme threaded rod and it wont screw all the way on. I get it to screw on the shaft about 1 inch and it locks up. Either my shaft and rod are different thread size or the Lem metal gear is defective and the threads have changed during the hardening process.... I have seen this before when hardening...... I am going to stop by a local machine shop and see what they can do. I don't have an acme tap and they are anywhere from 40 to 100 bucks. I hope they will be able to run a tap through the hardened gear..... its a little dicey... If that don't work I'll have to return the gears to LEM.....  From what I have read here the LEM gears fit the northern tool stuffer's and I don't believe there is a metric acme thread.

It also may be in the acme threaded rod.. It not a high quality rod and does have burs and dings and a poor zinc coating. The northern tool gear is super loose and even wobbles on the shaft due to the lack of precision machining.. I will head to my Buddy's shop down the street and clean up the shaft before I head to the machine shop



I also bored out my home made snack stick tube to 7/16Th's Inside diameter.. finished with a reamer... that turned out well.


be back with some results

Thanks for looking

Joe
 
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Hope it works out for you without having to exchange the LEM gear 
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  Did your plastic gears break or are you doing the upgrade before they do?
 
Hope it works out for you without having to exchange the LEM gear 
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  Did your plastic gears break or are you doing the upgrade before they do?
They didnt break yet but the popping from the gear slippage is getting more frequent.. Thanks dave I'll give them a call before I head to the machine shop....

Cleaned up the shaft about 2 inches in and the gear went on a little more but it was tight....

 
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Someone on another forum a few years ago said that the LEM gears would not work on their Northern stuffers (which is why I bought the Grizzly), but others since then have said that they work just fine.
Maybe the Northern stuffers have been made by a couple different manufacturers.
It should work if you replace the rod and the piston, but I have no clue how much that'll cost.

???



~Martin
 
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Someone on another forum a few years ago said that the LEM gears would not work on their Northern stuffers (which is why I bought the Grizzly), but others since then have said that they work just fine.
Maybe the Northern stuffers have been made by a couple different manufacturers.
It should work if you replace the rod and the piston, but I have no clue how much that'll cost.

???



~Martin
Just got off the phone with LEM and not much help there... They said their gears fit their stuffers... They dont know about anyone elses pretty much..... Yeah Martin dont want to go much farther into this. The gears were 48 bucks..... If the machine shop has an acme tap and it goes through the gear clean I will return the gears and get a credit and order the stuffer
 
I assume you tried the nylon or Delrin gears from Walton's??  I know they work fine and I almost dare you to break them ... may trash them but not likely to break them.  Northern and Grizzly gears are a hard plastic and crack/fatigue then break.
 
Well the verdict is in.... The large gear will not fit my NT stuffer. Just got back from my local machine shop and this is not just an acme thread... The thread is a double thread which makes it go twice as fast. The shaft has 2  threads which start on each side of the shaft at one end.  I will have to return the gears and get a stuffer already with metal gears... Would like to move up to a 7 or 10 lb while I am at it

Thanks for the input

Joe
 
 
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Dont know yet...... looks like it might be the LEM
 
 
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The gears will technically work, but they are not a good fit. Some food grade oil makes it easier, but there will still be shavings.
 
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