Mike Green
Aluminum
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2005
- Location
- Lowell Ma.
OK, so after 250 to 300 hours into the refurbishment of my heavy 10 lathe, I am now in the process of dealing with the headstock sleeve bearings. First I removed the bearing caps as per the manual, removed the spindle assembly and back gear assembly and reverse lever with associated gearing and set all that aside. Cleaned up-prepared and primed and painted all the headstock castings, covers and bearing caps.Then remounted the headstock casting to the bed. Then pulled off the spindle gear, slipped everything else off up to the left of the bull gear, did'nt remove that because I have no arbor press. Cleaned off all the gunk on those pieces and re-assembled on the bench. The previous owner had the bearing expanders sitting on top of the slots not actualy slid into them and ran it that way for some period of time, so they were buggered a bit. I used a file to dress the expanders and the left bearing, but could'nt get at the right one to dress it and let it be. I spread the right bearing with snap ring pliers and dropped in the expander. Now I placed the assembly back into the headstock, put the existing .015" brass shims in place,put the caps on,screwed in the expander screws to spread the bearing to some unknowable amount,screwed in the cap screws and tightened them.OK now it's adjustment time, after several attempts I can either get, a reading on the dial indicator of .002"-.005" upward spindle movement or .001"-.0015" but the spindle feels way too tight when I try to rotate it by hand Is it that the shims are too thick? Please HELP!! Mike