Erichimedes
Plastic
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2019
I just bought this Wells Index 887 mill, and I've just gotten it back to the shop. It has the VS head.
The head has a pretty solid rattle when it's in high gear. My guess was the clutch dog teeth were either not fully engaged or super worn out.
So I tore into the head yesterday, and here's what I found. The engagement between the clutch dog (P/N 100-002-991) and the lower pulley face spindle assembly (P/N 101-218-402) is what I would consider pretty loose. The dogs did appear to have full engagement, but their fit was fairly loose.
The dogs measure .361" and the slots they fit in measure .407" so it's not a crazy huge amount of play, but it's definitely enough to cause some rattling. One more thing is that when the mill was running, you could get the rattle to go away somewhat if you pushed up on the shift lever, which I can now see would push the dogs together tighter and help prevent them from rattling.
So, here's the question: does this look like an unacceptable amount of play? It's the only thing in the head I could find that would cause a rattle like it was making. Here are the two options I've outlined:
1. shim the clutch dog up a few thousandths in the assembly so that it mimics pushing up on the shift lever when the head is in high gear. The extra pressure pushing the dogs together should help prevent them from rattling.
2. machine a new clutch dog with teeth that have a much tighter fit in the slots in the lower pulley face spindle assembly. I'm thinking more like .004" to .008 of play instead of .046". The clutch dog is mild steel, and a fairly simple part, and I happen to have my rotary table set up in the Bridgeport right now, so it's not a huge undertaking.
I already have an email in to Wells Index about this, but it sounds like their main tech is a very busy guy, and I'm under a bit of a time crunch to get this mill functional. Just interested in people's thoughts, thanks in advance.
Link to the manual with the parts I referenced: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzE9jeeb4Km1RmIzbEtnR3lhbzI3Q0RYVmhzeWNCV1pqVmZz
The head has a pretty solid rattle when it's in high gear. My guess was the clutch dog teeth were either not fully engaged or super worn out.
So I tore into the head yesterday, and here's what I found. The engagement between the clutch dog (P/N 100-002-991) and the lower pulley face spindle assembly (P/N 101-218-402) is what I would consider pretty loose. The dogs did appear to have full engagement, but their fit was fairly loose.
The dogs measure .361" and the slots they fit in measure .407" so it's not a crazy huge amount of play, but it's definitely enough to cause some rattling. One more thing is that when the mill was running, you could get the rattle to go away somewhat if you pushed up on the shift lever, which I can now see would push the dogs together tighter and help prevent them from rattling.
So, here's the question: does this look like an unacceptable amount of play? It's the only thing in the head I could find that would cause a rattle like it was making. Here are the two options I've outlined:
1. shim the clutch dog up a few thousandths in the assembly so that it mimics pushing up on the shift lever when the head is in high gear. The extra pressure pushing the dogs together should help prevent them from rattling.
2. machine a new clutch dog with teeth that have a much tighter fit in the slots in the lower pulley face spindle assembly. I'm thinking more like .004" to .008 of play instead of .046". The clutch dog is mild steel, and a fairly simple part, and I happen to have my rotary table set up in the Bridgeport right now, so it's not a huge undertaking.
I already have an email in to Wells Index about this, but it sounds like their main tech is a very busy guy, and I'm under a bit of a time crunch to get this mill functional. Just interested in people's thoughts, thanks in advance.
Link to the manual with the parts I referenced: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzE9jeeb4Km1RmIzbEtnR3lhbzI3Q0RYVmhzeWNCV1pqVmZz
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