Ben I have the same lathe and I moved it to my barn shop, put a 3 phase motor 2hp and it runs great. I do need a gib for the tool level slide. Clausing was good to me in that they gave me a drawing of it as the part is no longer available. The people at clausing have been very helpful (Clausing is now Atlas tools)😀 Also purchased a Bridgport mill and that sucker is the heavey one but got it down to Texas from Milwaukee area in the back of my F350.😁 Most recently purchased a Brown and Sharp surface grinder and is coming together good, even after when unloading from pickup I pulled it off its pallet and it flipped over off the truck tore my tail gate up but it is so heavy and stout it was not damaged. Hine think through any loading or unloading of heavy equipment and not beer during. LOL
I used 10wt spindle oil in both the hi/lo gearbox and headstock of my clausing 1440 and it took half the noise out. Couldn't believe it. Only reason I went down in weight was the 20 or 30 wt I had in the hi/lo was foaming just enough to notice. Yours sounds like mine did before the change.
Nice lathe. You may want to follow Rob Renzetti and Stefan Goteswinter since they both have a lot to say about how to make the lathe really useful [solid tool posts, swarf guard, micrometer mounts etc]. Also having a VFD on the lathe is super useful. Have fun!
