American Rototex Autos.....

[ebscreen]

Yeah, I thought all I had to do was manually trigger the follower switch a bunch of times.
Sounds like you know what you're doing, so I'm sure you'll have this beast up in no time.
RE: no power to the indexer, check and make sure that the "programmer", a plastic piece
with a bunch of micro switches on the Geneva drive, is in the right position. If it hasn't cycled
all the way through (IE from moving, etc.) it won't start a new index cycle. You have to manually
turn the belt/pulley/drive system and get back to the beginning.

Your odd head doesn't sound familiar, but I'd bet it's to get a flash in there. We would lift the
head up (them suckers is heavy) and block it.

[Inkworks]

When all said and done i should know this press really well.

That's worth it's weight in gold. Not only are you going to end up with a decent auto at a silly low price, but the elbow grease you're putting in will save you thousands on tech calls and down-time later when something doesn't work and you can trouble shoot it in your head because you know the machine inside and out.

Congrats on the purchase. I love digging into, cleaning up, and fixing new-to-me equipment.

[Printhouse]

My goal is to getting it running and then take one head at a time completely apart....  I want to bead blast all the metal parts and shot peen all the aluminum parts then spray everything in new paint.  My good friend is next door to my shop and owns a hot rod restoration company.  We can spray everything in his booth.  This will give me a good chance to lubricate everything properly and replace any work parts and also allow me to know how the heads function for future reference.  Tomorrow we have to find out why we are not getting the correct signals to the indexing side of things.  Today we found 6 of 8 micro switches on the head were froze up.  We freed and lubed them and now the heads cycle and stop as they should for each independent test print.  I am hoping when we narrow it all down it is something simple.  I am hoping to get an owner of one of these from Florida to open his control panel, which only takes turning a key, and tell me what all is lit up on his computer when he first powers it up.

[Printhouse]

Well....  today we are going to take a blown up schematic and tape it to the wall.  Starting at the plug we are going to start tracking and testing each wire, breaker, switch....  in order.  As each section checks OK it will be highlighted in green.  Anything questionable will be orange.  At some point we are going to find why this thing has no power to the indexing motor.  I will not give up until I print a tee on this thing!

[ebscreen]

Did you check the "controller"? It would be in braking mode and hence cutting power to the motor.

[Printhouse]

I am working through things now..  Had to run some design samples out this morning now onto this press!  I have to figure out why I have no white power light on the panel when I turn it on yet power to the heads....  I am not sure that white power light should ever go out for any reason!

[Printhouse]

Ok..... The first thing I did today was head to staples and have them print out a 26 X 38 inch schematic.  I was tired of putting the multimeter down to pick up that tiny schematic.  I thumbtacked it to e wall and was able to just glance up at it.  I got in touch with the press doctor, Ed, down in Florida who worked for American for many years.  He was awesome and was able to lead me to what led lights should be lit on the computer.  After some more metering we found the 24 volt power supply was not putting anything out, which literally feeds half the components.  Hopefully grainger will have one in the morning!

[ebscreen]

Hope that does it!

As a component I've heard that transformers are pretty robust though, so maybe check the incoming if
you haven't.

Are you lucky enough to have the keys to your machine?

[RICK STEFANICK]

you know rick fuque at rpm probably still has used american parts as well. i know at one time he refurbed them.. he has a wealth of knowledge about them also. super nice guy and i bet if you called he would help you out..also the press doctor down in florida is a american expert tech..

[Printhouse]

Yeah, Ed is amazing.... No schematic in front of him and can pretty much recall the wire numbers off the top of his head.   My lock is missing from the control panel and I have no key for the side panels.  I was planning on all new locks during the refurb.  If all goes and the press runs the refurb of the first head will begging tomorrow.

[Printhouse]

Ordered the 24 volt power supply today, a whopping $46 shipped!  Ordered the paint to match the original blue and took detailed pics and notes to start taking the  first head apart for rebuild.  Once broke down verging will go to the parts cleaner then the aluminum parts will be shot preened and the steel parts bead blasted.  The covers will be painted the original blue and the screen hangers are going to be black.  Luckily we can take everything next door to my friends paint booth.  We are taking the entire base down on a fork lift to spray the base and table later this week.

[ebscreen]

Like painting a car red so it will go faster?

While you're at it, replace the AC head drive motors with DC so you can control the speed.
Probably the one downfall with these machines. We used to swap out the pulley's/belts for
a slower print speed on super heavy inks. I entertained the idea of putting in  variable pulleys
at one point.

[Printhouse]

That would be nice to have dc motors up there on the heads.  I really like how simple this press is.  If you ever wanted an entry level press at a good cost and easy to maintain this sure fits the bill.

[StuJohnston]

Printhouse IIRC, the machine that you picked up looked pretty clean in the photos, did they use solvent ink or epoxies with this machine? I am having a hard time thinking of why you would need to use abrasives to remove dirt and grease and maybe some dried ink. When I got my Arrow, I had the same sort of restoration project in mind, then I started using it for printing. Not that I don't intend to restore it eventually, but to quote my dad, "It don't hurt the runnin' of it none." Of course I cleaned it enough to use, but not restored to showroom like I had in my head.

Your heads are single speed? Don't they have a variable pulley on them? That's the way that my older flatstock presses work. if not, I would recommend looking at that before trying to upgrade to the dc motor + controller. The way they work is the motor is mounted on a hinge that allows the shaft to move towards and away from the gearbox so that it will expand and contract the pulley when you adjust the height of the motor. A used motor control for one of my heads is like $200 and I don't think that matching motor is any less expensive.

[Printhouse]

The biggest thing is every metal knob and thead is somewhat finely coated with rust and corrosion.  I actually think I am going to throw them all in a media tumbler this week.  I just have time to kill waiting on my power supply which is not going to be here until Monday so I thought why not clean it up and paint it while I am waiting!