10EE - Removing & Reinstalling the Spindle

So, as discussed in other threads, I need to remove and reinstall my spindle after repairing one of the gear retaining collars. I'm looking for ideas on how to insure the exact same bearing alignment to retain spindle accuracy?

Haven't seen your other posts so don't know what you are referring to.

You're in luck, when you remove the 10EE spindle the important bearings come out with it and they don't move around unless you move them. The inner races do not move on the spindle. Put a magic marker stripe on the headstock and outer races as they come out. Put them back like that and no sweat.

However, cleanliness far beyond common shop practices are needed to preserve those bearings during any handling.

Follow Dave's advice. I can't stress clean enough, I cover them with something clean and lint free, if they will sit unattended even for a short time.

I will add :
The inner races of the bearings on the chuck end will be clamped.
The outside races and spacers should be clamped too, if they are loose, one needs to find out why. Most likely something is not assembled properly, the inner race clamping is not tight, or the bearings are worn and the preload is gone.

Bill

DaveE907 said:

Haven't seen your other posts so don't know what you are referring to.

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This is the original thread, DaveE907 - THREAD LINK

DaveE907 said:

You're in luck, when you remove the 10EE spindle the important bearings come out with it and they don't move around unless you move them. The inner races do not move on the spindle. Put a magic marker stripe on the headstock and outer races as they come out. Put them back like that and no sweat. However, cleanliness far beyond common shop practices are needed to preserve those bearings during any handling.

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Good to know. Thank you.

hitandmiss said:

Follow Dave's advice. I can't stress clean enough, I cover them with something clean and lint free, if they will sit unattended even for a short time.

I will add :
The inner races of the bearings on the chuck end will be clamped.
The outside races and spacers should be clamped too, if they are loose, one needs to find out why. Most likely something is not assembled properly, the inner race clamping is not tight, or the bearings are worn and the preload is gone.
Bill

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Thank you, too, Bill. Can you explain the "clamping" references. I am not understanding you.

The round dial manuals I have seen shows a headstock cross section marked Figure A
Item 4 is the nut that clamps the rotating oil slinger, the inner races with spacer between. to the shoulder on the spindle.

Square dial print 202,268 the nut is EE-2451.

If the bearings are installed properly (I have found spindle bearings on several machines installed backwards), and that nut is tight (loose clamp nuts is fairly common), the outer spacer should be clamped tightly between the outer races. Worn out bearings is also common.

The same can be found on the belt end of the spindle. When the preload is gone, they seem to howl at some speeds.

Hope this makes sense.

Bill

You may not have this luxury, but when reinstalling the spindle it is nice to have the headstock off and pointiing straight up. Put a lightbulb inside the headstock for a few hours and lower the spindle down into the cavity. I remember it felt like the headstock was sucking that spindle in. I seem to remember to snug down the nut, but not tightly until the spindle was fully installed , then tighten it down when it was.

daryl bane said:

You may not have this luxury, but when reinstalling the spindle it is nice to have the headstock off and pointiing straight up. Put a lightbulb inside the headstock for a few hours and lower the spindle down into the cavity. I remember it felt like the headstock was sucking that spindle in. I seem to remember to snug down the nut, but not tightly until the spindle was fully installed , then tighten it down when it was.

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Daryl, thank you for reminding me of this. I had indeed read about your doing this in your own thread and made mental note of it. But, I had forgotten about it as I was not going to be removing my head stock. However, with the recent changes of pace and schedule my bed is indeed getting ground shortly, I will have the head stock off and able to be tipped up. So thank you.

ZK - < still trying to figure out what Bill is trying to educate me about >

Bill's posts:

Maybe it has to do with the preload nut, and how it aligns/clamps the bearings, etc., with the spindle...? I don't understand much of the spindle setup, but actually adjusting the nut was a lifesaver for my 10EE. Went from .0009 to .00015 spindle runout.

What Bill describes is the right hand end main spindle bearings inner races are clamped axially against a shoulder ground integral to the spindle by a bearing nut. The bearings install from the left end of the spindle and pass along until they arrive at their seat at the spindle nose end.

As installed that pair of expensive high precision spindle bearings are preloaded so the outer races should not be easily moved with respect to each other with the spindle out of the headstock. There is no external clamp or force on the outer races, they have built in axial interference just right when clamped on the spindle by the bearing nut. It's a tough job to accomplish correctly. Ball bearing matched sets were done early on in 10EE days by selective manufacturing processes, sort through and select the cream of the crop. As ball bearing manufacturing control and inspection got good enough it was manufactured into the bearings.

What preload creates is plastic deformation of the balls and races at their contact points within stress limits of the materials for an acceptable operating life for the application. So, in other words, those bearings in a 10EE are working hard, even at rest. And, they don't last forever. Hertzian contact stress and abrasive wear are the demise of rolling element bearings.

Preload of that duplex bearing pair is crucial to the performance of the machine, it provides both stiffness and precision to support of the shaft: a precision machine spindle.

Abrasive wear is what you can prevent by protecting exposed bearings from contamination.

Installing a duplex pair backward is a crime in my book.

DaveE907, thank you for that thoughtful response and explanation. That, I grok.

Zahnrad Kopf said:

DaveE907, thank you for that thoughtful response and explanation. That, I grok.

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Thanks Dave for translating it into English.

My Fixin skills are good, my writin about it aren't so hot.

Bill

Maintaining the rotational relationship of the outer races with the bore they came from is very important with these older bearings. There may be marks you can see, and they may not be aligned "properly" by today's standards. Tricks of the trade of the old timers to get acceptable run out.

"Grok" is the first word I've had to look up in years. Thanks for the laugh!

Thank you both, glad it made sense. I couldn't sleep so made that post, never know if what I write will to anyone.

Bill makes an important point about maintaining the rotational relationship of the outer races to the bore. That was the purpose of making the Magic Marker stripes on the headstock and outer races at removal of the spindle.

I hope you surveyed the machine before tearing into it, doing so evaluates the condition of those expensive bearings and lets you know their condition beforehand.

ZK,

You won't need to mess with the nut that Bill and Dave mentioned, as long as you are just removing and reinstalling the spindle for purposes other than changing the bearings. You're best off to leave it as is and remove the spindle with the front bearings still locked in place by the nut.

Cal

Cal Haines said:

ZK,
You won't need to mess with the nut that Bill and Dave mentioned, as long as you are just removing and reinstalling the spindle for purposes other than changing the bearings. You're best off to leave it as is and remove the spindle with the front bearings still locked in place by the nut.
Cal

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Thank you, Cal. Yes, I do indeed see that now...

For the benefit of people in this situation a few moons from now, it is a fairly simple affair requiring very little actual effort to accomplish. This is one of those efforts that seems muddy when trying to read about it but once one gets into it and sees what is happening, reveals itself to be a very simple thing to do.

Pictures will help. So, I took some while doing it.

Keying off of a tip shown by another poster, my puller consisted of some 3/8" all-thread, cut into 7" long pieces. I would find out later that one would be better off with just a little more room to pull with, so make your own 9" long and you should have enough room to do this in one shot instead of the way that I resorted to. The blocking ( wood ) was a simple scrap of 2" x 6", 8" long, with a hole drilled through the center for the "pulling" all-thread doing the work.



To capture the other end, I used a Bevel Gear blank that I had knocking about from a previous job that happened to be a perfect fit for the rear of the spindle. It had a 1.5" diameter hub that was perfect for the bore and a .650" bore that fit the 5/8" all-thread nicely.




Remember to pull the lock screw/pin from the backside of the head stock, to allow the bearings to slide by, and remember to loosen the set screw in the spindle's tachometer drive gear to allow it to slide off as you pull the spindle. My own was already missing, so no worries there.


Bearing in mind the admonitions about keeping track of how one's bearings come out of the head stock, I started drawing a mark with a sharpie.




About 5" later, I ran out of room to keep pulling. The spindle nose was hitting the wood. This is why one would want longer 3/8" all-thread.




I worked around this by removing the 3/8" all-thread, removing the nuts that I was using to bear against the wood, and placing it through the hole in the spindle cap, then threading one single nut onto the all-thread, and then threading the all-thread back into the head stock. This allowed me to use the nuts to push against the spindle nose cap from the back of it, continuing to pull the spindle.

I did not think to take pics of that part, but the spindle came out very shortly after. It was only another 1" approximately. I did take a picture of them as they remained once the spindle was clear.




Bearings have always felt fine, but I was always concerned about the lack of oil from the way I received the lathe. My concerns are not completely unfounded it seems, and there is a fair amount of sedimentary residue in the bottom of the cavity.







Once out, I immediately stored the spindle and bearings inside a new, clean, plastic bag and sealed it in efforts to prevent contamination.

Done. It takes very little physical effort to accomplish all this. I literally had just two or three fingers spinning the wrenches and nuts.

I will post the findings of the reason for needing to pull the spindle in that thread.

Thanks to all that helped along the way! I appreciate your taking the time.

Thank you for documenting this for future use by those who will undoubtedly be in your debt when they need to pull their 10 EE spindle, well done.

The lubricants specified for the headstock (all versions of the 10EE) are designed to drop the bits, pieces and gunk to the bottom of the headstock sumps and leave it there.

I'm sure you will take the opportunity to clean the sumps out, remove the oil sight glass(s) to drain and assist in the clean out process. Avoid using any lint shedding materials in your work: cloth, paper towels, etc. Also, be aware that anything you stir up and leave behind will help the abrasive bad guys work on your very expensive spindle bearings. Keep the open headstock as protected as your spindle is.

My preference is a high volume vane type vacuum pump with an liquid trap to remove all the crappola while washing down with squirts of the specified oil and clean, very clean plastic bristle brushes of many different configurations. The snorkel end is a vinyl hose sized for the job. Not a typo: the specified oil. Unless you are going to tear it completely down avoid using any sort of solvent in there. A solvent will release the nasties the engineered lubricant kept at bay.

Happy New Year to you all!

I would also check the labyrinth seal drain hole to make sure it is not blocked. Mine was blocked and oil just came out from around the spindle.

RC99 said:

I would also check the labyrinth seal drain hole to make sure it is not blocked. Mine was blocked and oil just came out from around the spindle.

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Good idea. There should be two drain holes in the front bearing retainer (EE-1128).


One is an overflow passage, shown in cyan above, which lets excess oil from the front reservoir drain into the center reservoir. There are two cross-drilled holes in the retainer plate that connect to the horizontal passage through the headstock. The other, not shown, is the one RC mentioned. It's at 6 O'clock on the retainer and allows oil from the torroidal cavity around the slinger on the front of the spindle to drain down the front of the plate, rather than walk out along the spindle and get sprayed everywhere. They frequently get painted shut.

Cal

Zahnrad Kopf said:

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The best laid plans o' mice an' men, Gang aft a-gley...






Tried turning it back, but no love. Any ideas?

Solved. Strap wrenches.