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overtightened the bearing caps on my heavy 10

Red1fire

Aluminum
Joined
Oct 14, 2015
Removed my bgr caps (1947 heavy 10R) to change the capillary oilers and tightened it back down too tight. Now I cant tighten them down because they lock the shaft up with the slightest bolt pressure. Any one know whats happening here. Sounds like the shims have been compressed?
 
How tight were the bolts when you removed them? It's possible that in the past someone didn't have the correct shims and left the caps loose on purpose - stranger things have happened.
 
A back-of-the-envelope calculation says you could only compress the shims something like 0.1 % in an extreme case. I'd check to see if the shims are evenly distributed and evenly tightened.
 
I dont think I put them in the right place. does it matter if they are switched right to left. By the way this unit doesnt have bearing expanders.
 
Are your bearings iron or bronze?
The bronze bearings have 2 pipe plugs in the bearing cap that need to be opened and the screws below removed before removing the caps. If this is not done, the bearings will have a raised area caused by the expander being pulled off the bearing. It is a bit of a job to get it back together and working properly when this happens.

Bill
 
If as the poster says, this headstock does not use bronze shells with expanders, then
one thing that could be locking the bearings up would be the felt oilers he changed.

Possible they were not held down properly and worked themselves in between the
journal and the bearing?
 
You gotta have those shims in there. The idea is to start with too thick and gradually reduce, removing 0.001 on one side, then on the other. You're looking for radial play rather than spinning freely. Somewhere, probably on the SB Wells site, there's a procedure for doing this.
 
Get the book for rebuilding these as it provides all information needed to do it correctly.

Listed on ebay for most sb lines.

Brain fart. ..Cannot remember the name of the party selling but others will or just search for South Bend lathe manual
 
They are iron bearings, a lot nicer than those in my lathe.

Did you hold the popup oilers down with a wire in the vent hole above the oil cups. a single strand of fuzz will lock the bearing.
 
Hitandmiss, Bought the rebuild kit for the heavy 10L it came with a book too but the head I have is nothing like the diagrams. I didn't hold the oilers down other than push them down. Am I missing something? (Revision) Wait there are two small holes with a fine wire coming out of them just below the capillaries are these the hold down wires? The book showed the capillaries being held down by a wire approx1/2" into the capillaries ports. So I would pull the wires out once the spindle is in place?
 
I just did this on my SB9 UMD and held the oilers down with the wire until the spindle was reinstalled and seated correctly. Keeps the felt out of the way until you know the spindle is all set to go.
 
Are you asking if the wire will make it bind? If so, it will not cause binding. The wire should be under the path of the spindle - holding the oiler under the path as well. When you remove the wire after spindle installation, the oilers will pop up and be in their correct position.

Hope I'm not confusing you here - it sounds like the different machines should be the same. But I can't say that for sure.
 
I didn't wire them down but was wondering if not having them wired down during the reassembly could cause the spindle to bind.
 
I'm assuming with such tight tolerances the felts could have worked their way up and gotten nipped by the spindle while sliding it through. My felts definitely would have been in the way had I not held them down.

Might want to take it out and redo it to check it off the list.
 








 
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