De-mounting wheel flanges

Greetings from Australia. Well after lurking for a while the time has come to pop up and say something. Great knowledge and experience on this forum BTW, I am very impressed.

I would like to know what are the accdepted methods for de-mounting grinding wheel flanges off the spindle when changing wheels?

I have no way on my machine except for loosening the nut a half turn then tapping the back of the wheel with a bronze hammer while rotation slowly by hand until the taper releases. I hate doing it but have no option that I can think of. Running a 10" OD by 3" ID by 1" wide wheel.

Cheers.

If the hubs are sopko hubs they should have some threads around where the nut is to secure it. There is a tool that attaches to the threads and is like a gear puller and pops the wheel loose.

On my machine my sopko wrench has pins on it for unscrewing the retaining nut on the hub. It happens to be the perfect height to go between the spindle end cap and the back of the hub and the hub will pop right off. So no pressure on the bearings this way.

Tapping on the arbor is a good way to damage the bearings.

I always end up making tools for my old machines. It is so much better than improvising with the wrong tool.

I made a pin wrench and a hub extractor for my Elliott 921. Oh, and I also made a large socket to unscrew the bearing retaining nuts when I rebuilt the spindle and a wrench for the machine adjustable feet.

The previous owner apparently only had a cold chisel and a large hammer in his toolbox.......

Is yours an Elliott? The wheel size you quoted is the same as mine.

Regards,

Mike.

Thanks for the tips guys. Interesting to see the Sopko website and the huge array of parts and adaptors available. We just don't get things like that here in Oz, not a big enough market for it.
I got NO tools with the grinder, even had to make my own balancing arbor for the two flanges!!! I have no idea how the guy who owned it before me got any decent work done on it, and he was not much of a maintinance man either, never checked if the lube lines were actually working or even greased anything, called himself a toolmaker too...
MikeJB: See the pics below of the machine. Its actually a POWER made in Melbourne, Australia by Pauer & Co in the 60's. Built like the proverbial brick outhouse and very accurate for a 40+ year old machine. I am very happy to have this machine even if it is old and a bit clunky, I have partly reco-d it, re scraped and mottled the X and Y ways, cleaned the oil system, new seals and everything short of putting its empty carcase on a slideway grinder. In testament to its build after the years of neglect it suffered I can talk to it in microns quite easily, can't even see it sparking when I make it take off two or three microns!! Interesting too that its a travelling column, not a saddle in sight. Its a 600mm by 300mm capacity, or 2' by 1' for benifit of those still working in Whitworths...
See the photo of the spindle nose detail... you can see the 'four lug' nut (had to make the tool for that too...) that locks the flange on the spindle that sits inside part of the flange. And on the outside there is a small amount of LH 1"5/8 Dia thread.
Experts... please tell me...is that large LH thread where a 'De-mounting tool' should screw on and then press against the spindle nose after removing the four lug locking nut? Doesn't seem like it would have enough thread length to me. I always thought some monkey had modified the flanges from screw locking to 3 SHCS locking like you see there, hence the 'leftover' thread. Maybe not it seems...
Pardon my ignorance but I have never seen or used a tool to demount a flange before, even in all the places I have worked with grinders.

VesperTools said:

I would like to know what are the accdepted methods for de-mounting grinding wheel flanges off the spindle when changing wheels?

Click to expand...

Sopko puller.

SM

Gooday from North Queensland. I have recently obtained a Power S3 Surface grinder. I cannot find out any information on it. HELP>