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K&T 2K bearing heat problems

almightyhose

Plastic
Joined
Jun 18, 2017
I am looking to buy a K&T 2K that's in fantastic shape, but I am worried about it having some spindle problems. The spindle bearings head up very quickly after only a couple minutes of running, probably up to around 100 degrees F. The spindle is also very tight that I cannot rotate it by hand without a crescent wrench on one of the drive dogs, but that may just be normal with these machines. I am just concerned that this heat buildup might be a problem if I were to buy the machine. Do you think that if I take the head apart and clean all the bearings out really well and oil them again, will it fix the problem? Im sure the oil that's in the head is far overdue for a change, and I can even see in the sightglass that its pretty sludgy (see picture 3 for the sliding head sightglass). The machine is in awesome shape, so any advice?

First picture is of the column face, second is under the table, third is the sliding head ways
 

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Ill see what i can do, and thanks for the links. Do you think I have anything to worry about? My problem is that I do not own it yet and it's also 3 hours away, so I cannot really do much to the machine aside from asking the owner to do it for me. I went to see the machine for myself yesterday and thats when I realized the issue
 

Ill see what i can do, and thanks for the links. Do you think I have anything to worry about? My problem is that I do not own it yet and it's also 3 hours away, so I cannot really do much to the machine aside from asking the owner to do it for me. I went to see the machine for myself yesterday and thats when I realized the issue
 
That looks like the ways are in great shape for its age. Make sure you put the machine in neutral to turn the spindle easily. Best you can really do is flush the gearbox and put in fresh stuff, I like using kerosene to flush. If the spindle bearings are bad, they will probably be more than the cost of the whole machine. The machine pumps oil over the spindle bearings so removing them and cleaning won't do much.

I have a beat up 2k from 1942 and the spindle still runs great
 
johnoder is spot on , I have seen some owner, operator and maintenance people add what ever lube laying around to machines before and it seems more prevalent in older machines, heavy gear oil where lite turbine oil was required sure. Hell we dug bearing grease out of a gear box that called out for non detergent SAE 10
The other side may be there's no oil in there at all or not getting to where it needs to be.
These spindles don't free wheel super easy, but the heat buildup with no load after a few minutes is not good.
 








 
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