Bridgeport ram won't slide

nearbeer · Sep 4, 2018

Hello all and thank you for your time.

I've been slowly disassembling and cleaning up a Bridgeport 2J mill; everything was proceeding smoothly until now. My focus has been getting the ram to slide off of the turret and it has not budged one bit; there is a significant amount of surface rust on the turret & ram ways.

I removed the ram pinion, the ram lock bolts/studs, and the locking pins that hold the turret to the spider. The ram and turret are completely off of the vertical column; the head I pulled off last year and the only other part attached to the ram is the ram adapter.

A few weeks ago I tried bolting the turret to the garage floor with 1/2" anchors and using a bottle jack tilted at an angle to try to get the ram to move; I don't think I had the angles right and too much of the bottle jack force went to lifting up the back end of the ram off of the anchors and not enough force along the ram's long axis.

I have looked at the underside of the turret and can feel the ram clamps moving freely about a pin; I don't believe that is what is keeping the ram from sliding along the turret.

Have I removed everything from the ram and turret that would keep it from sliding? I am at the point where I am going to get some scrap c-channel and tube to build a rack/cage that will allow me to move the ram/turret into a vertical position; I will weld some c-channel 10-12" behind the ram to act as a backstop/brace for the bottle jack while it presses against the end of the ram.

I have put several applications of PB blaster, 3 in 1, etc type of lubricants on the ways in hopes that they will creep into the horizontal part of the ways but it has not helped. I have built a plywood box to act as a tub for electrolysis removal but I am not sure that electrolysis is going to help at this point and I want to avoid the mess if able.

Again, can you identify anything that is keeping the ram from sliding along the turret?

Thanks and still haven't found my next cold one,

NearBeer

Richard King · Sep 4, 2018

I have had some super tight ones over the years too. Rams that is....lol I had to get mad and have a friend hold an oak 4 x 4 and sledge hammer it off. Be sure to clean the ram with scotch brite. I stood the ram up and strapped it to a steel table and ram on a hardwood plank. Soft pin won't work. One way to do it if you have the time. Use your plastic sheet lined box and use citric acid mixed with water. A friend of mine showed me how well it works, but it may take weeks. He is a Practical Machinist member and you can send him a private message. His name on here and in real life is. andrewmawson

I will see if I can find a link to his recipe. Check out post 19. https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...nd-lathes/cleaning-up-bridgeport-mill-344606/

thermite · Sep 4, 2018

nearbeer said:
Hello all and thank you for your time.

I've been slowly disassembling and cleaning up a Bridgeport 2J mill; everything was proceeding smoothly until now. My focus has been getting the ram to slide off of the turret and it has not budged one bit; there is a significant amount of surface rust on the turret & ram ways.

I removed the ram pinion, the ram lock bolts/studs, and the locking pins that hold the turret to the spider. The ram and turret are completely off of the vertical column; the head I pulled off last year and the only other part attached to the ram is the ram adapter.

A few weeks ago I tried bolting the turret to the garage floor with 1/2" anchors and using a bottle jack tilted at an angle to try to get the ram to move; I don't think I had the angles right and too much of the bottle jack force went to lifting up the back end of the ram off of the anchors and not enough force along the ram's long axis.

I have looked at the underside of the turret and can feel the ram clamps moving freely about a pin; I don't believe that is what is keeping the ram from sliding along the turret.

Have I removed everything from the ram and turret that would keep it from sliding? I am at the point where I am going to get some scrap c-channel and tube to build a rack/cage that will allow me to move the ram/turret into a vertical position; I will weld some c-channel 10-12" behind the ram to act as a backstop/brace for the bottle jack while it presses against the end of the ram.

I have put several applications of PB blaster, 3 in 1, etc type of lubricants on the ways in hopes that they will creep into the horizontal part of the ways but it has not helped. I have built a plywood box to act as a tub for electrolysis removal but I am not sure that electrolysis is going to help at this point and I want to avoid the mess if able.

Again, can you identify anything that is keeping the ram from sliding along the turret?

Thanks and still haven't found my next cold one,

NearBeer

Not a new problem. If you can still SEE rust, remove it mechanically so you do not "wedge" it between the surfaces when they DO start to move. Follow through this recent success story:

https://www.practicalmachinist.com/...mond-va-150-a-352711-post3221822/#post3221822

The thing you need to do is force the rust where you CANNOT get at it to fail "structurally" in shear. Slow, heavy bottle-jack push, or beating on it with a maul or a resilient block in between, the force is going into stressing the castings as much as it is the rust. Good way to distort those or even crack them.

Shearing the rust, strong in compression, weak when laterally-loaded, needs a SHARP rap, or a series of them, not a heavier deadblow.

Think of that uber-thin layer of trapped rust, doing its very damndest to take up more than ten times the space the same metal atoms occupied before combining with Oxygen as if it were a cross-breed of fired glass enamel "porcelainized" like Grandma's washpan and.... a hydraulic jack of its own.

A bit of Iron filings in the mix is how we make expanding "hydraulic" grouts and cements, after all, Roman "Aquarius" work krews onward.

Now fracture it into powder so it can no longer "jack". THEN it can move.

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Bridgeport ram won't slide

nearbeer

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Richard King

Diamond

thermite

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