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
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.