Another Jones & Shipman 540 Plain Bearing HELP.

G'day All

I have managed to find a relatively cheap Jones & Shipman 540 surface grinder. This one looks to be a very early model, perhaps around the early to mid 50's. The slide ways and hydraulics are in OK condition but the plain bronze spindle bearings are completely shot. The previous owner(s) have done a lot of adjusting with the wrong tools and pretty much destroyed them. The threads on each end of the taper bearings are almost striped and they've used a hammer and punch to tighten/loosen the castellated adjusting nuts. Every castellation has a massive burr on it. The spindle shaft is in reasonable condition with some minor scoring in places..
In any case it appears to be a write off as it is.. Spare parts appear to not be available for the plain bearing heads so my first thought is to just re-make the bronze bushings but i would also have to make and or repair all of the wedge strips, lock nuts, spacers etc etc and to be honest i have zero experience with these types of bearings, their adjustments, oil lube etc etc..
So my plan at the moment is to convert it over to precision angular contact bearings. This would also require considerable work, but its work that i am at least familiar with as i've rebuilt a few milling spindles etc in the past..

Has anyone done this before successfully? I don't see much point in re inventing the wheel so any other experience in the area would be valuable.
I have the section view of the J&S ball bearing spindle as a design starting point, but due to the differences in the housing, i will have to modify it somewhat.

Alternatively, are there complete spindle cartridge assemblies available that could be retro fitted? The housing bore is 2.5" (63.5mm) dia and around 7.5" long.

Cheers
Lee

If you are in the uk contact Andmar machines Andmar Ltd | Surface / Cylindrical Grinders & CNC Retrofit Specialists
They were very helpful when I spoke to them recently.
I got the impression that the ball bearing wheelhead for a 540 is a drop in replacement - They said that if they get a plain bearing one in to refurbish then the spindle goes in the bin and they fit a new one. I think a spindle is around 1500 complete, but I didn’t get an actual price.
Who knows maybe they’ll have a scrap spindle or bits of one.

Dave

Thanks Dave, i'll check them out..

Cheers
Lee

Did you have any luck Leeroy? I am after a replacement myself, not sure where to go, I'm in Australia.

Hi lee

In the middle of 2022 I rebuilt the spindle (just changed bearings) of the 1952/53 J&S 540 it had been rebuilt in the late80s early 90s and had the upgrade you plan to do. So it lasted ~25 years with hard use for 15 years and 10 years in a shed.

I know it used to be the tapered bushings because it has the oil ports/ drain port and it is of the era.

Two bearing housings are on each end they fit into the honed main bore and are held on by 3 fasteners. The front bearing was 30mm I’d 60mm od, The rear bearing is 25mm by 50mm Or something like that.


The rear bearing had a belville washer with fingers in the middle of it, that put the axial tension on the bearings.

The grinder spindle Works wonderfully, equal or better to our other 3 later model ones with the normal spindle. (They are a little more worn out)

Good luck with your grinder.