J & S surface grinder - refurbishment

It does Dave, that's excellent. Thank you for your efforts. I had another 'feel' tonight but nothing was obvious in the dark so I just need to look harder now that I know its there somewhere.

G.

I seem to remember thinking along the lines of that’s a really long edge to get a good seal on, bet there’s a bolt there somewhere… Of course when the cross feed is in pieces it’s a pita to wind it out, but unless you do it’s even more impossible to get to.

Dave

Dave found and removed that 5th nut today! ...Now I wonder how I could have missed it ! The valve cover is off along with bits of its gasket. That should be an easy one to make when the time comes.

Next job will be the spindle the after that the table. I was thinking I could lift the table using an engine crane attached to blocks in the 'T' slots. Might be a little tidier than stops. What to you think ? Anything I've missed ?

Gerry

I lifted mine with a block and tackle attached to the t slots, then strapped it out of the way.

a picture in this thread: **LINK**

Dont forget to release the ram ends from the table. I think they sit in a u slot, so just releasing the nuts allows the table to lift.

Dave

For those of you who are interested in the insides of the J&S 540 wheel-head spindle, then here they are after a bit of a clean-up.

50 year old grease abounded, but I think at some point the two covers had been removed and some fresh had been stuffed in. Even that looked and felt like it was at least 20 years old though! All the bearing seatings were good with no sign of creep or fretting damage. I was surprised to find the original Ransome and Marles bearings still in it. I stripped these too and was even more surprised to find them in a corrosion-free condition, especially as this unit doesn't have seals, only labyrinths.

The pulley end bearing was in almost perfect condition with just a few random metal chip indents in the raceways. There was however just a trace of wear on the raceways of the wheel-end bearing from dust ingress. However both definitely good enough to go back in for further duty and I'm quite sure they'll see me out.

Only one mistake so far - I forgot to measure the wheel-end spindle runout before I commenced the dismantling so now I don't have a target to meet or even exceed on the rebuild. Might need a little trial-and-error with ring positioning but good fun for a wet Saturday afternoon.

Just a word of caution for anyone doing the same exercise. When you pull out the free-half of the spring box arrangement from the casting, put your hand over the housing and collect the 12 springs before you do anything else. I didn't and the inevitable happened. I found 10 quick quickly, but the other two had bounced some distance and landed in one of the wife flower pots where they blended in nicely with the soil.

Gerry

I now have my table off and its being prepared for blasting and repaint. The ways look good, clear scapings cover the full surfaces and there is no damage or casting defects present. For the record the table weighs 55Kg.

I'm now cleaning and expecting the ram. Its all fine (apart from a obvious covered-up manufacturing error). Although the machine didn't have excessive leakage previously, I'm thinking that now its all in bits I may as well fit new seals. They are basically just simple bushes pressed into brass sleeves. as you can see below.

I would rather make something myself than buy new parts which cost around £50, but not sure about the material. I 'looks' like Tufnol, i.e. cloth impregnated, but its a little compliant, so its a kind of cloth impregnated with a hard rubber, as opposed to a phenolic. Would anyone know confidently what this material is or likely to be ?

Another puzzle is this. The spare parts manual shows gaskets between the central circular section tube and the two outer square section tubes.

The were no gaskets in mine, just spigots, and not particularly good fitting ones at that ! Could this be another build mistake perhaps ? Does anyone else have these gaskets here, and if so, are they fitted between the axial or radial surfaces of the spigots ?

Since there is no means of controlled axial clamping between these 3 ram cylinder parts its difficult to see how axial gaskets could ever be successful in this situation but what do I know

Gerry

Forget the question about the material for the seals. Further investigation shows that the ram seals are in fact proper 2-part hydraulic components which look like this:-

For the record the outer part has dimensions 9.5x 22.2 x 8.6 and back-up inner part 10 x 21.8 x 6.5. These should correspond to some imperial measurements of course and hopefully I should be able to find a cheap source somewhere on the net.

Gerry

I don't think that you'll find a cheap source of Walker Twinset seals, probably better to just bite the bullet and pay the money.

It's a shame that Hardinge/kellenberger have trashed the J&S organisation.

Edited By Mark Rand on 07/03/2022 19:33:11

Mine had gaskets as I remember having to find the gasket paper to make new ones.

Ill see if I have any photos for where they go - IIRC I didn’t pay attention, and made them for the wrong face initially…

Dave

The refurbishment continues with lots of parts in for grit-blasting this week. So far only one unexpected surprise..... the oil pan. This was 'perfect' when I gave it to the master blaster but when he'd finished with it it was full of holes!

Well I say "full of" ...there are probably a hand full, but plenty of pitting which isn't far off becoming holes. There must have been some water sitting in the bottom of the tank for a long time.

So my question is: what would be the recommended repair for this ? I suppose welding some plates on would be the best, but are there other proven solutions I should consider ?

Gerry.

Think I would be inclined to fibreglass it, now it’s been blasted you have a good surface for it to bond to, if you can do it on both sides so much the better, unless you absolutely love mig welding plates on.

I would probably TIG or braze up the holes - but I have a TIG set and like to use it
Given it’s an oil tank if you do fibreglass it make sure it’s ok for continuous submerging in hydraulic oil.

JB weld might also be an option

Dave

We used to repair petrol tanks by tinning with lead solder (large preheated iron) and then soldering on brass repair sheet pieces. Never had petrol leaks and that will get out of anywhere!!

Epoxy resin is the answer to perforated oil tank. I have repaired at least three of these in the past one which had been welded first before my intervention and still needed a resin coating. Sand blast and coat the whole of the inside with a two part resin. The one I used came from RS components.

David

Thanks chaps. I'll give those ideas some thoughts.

The refurbishment progresses and I'm now into the electrics.... and a good job too! I mentioned in a previous post that the standard isolator box on the left side of the machine had been bypassed, and that a previous owner had put a power-in lead through a random hole in the body on the right side of the machine. Well, it seems they didn't do a very good job. This cable was not restrained. The three lives were still attached but the earth was free-floating as you see below!

It might have been attached to something at one time, but a very careful inspection could not determine what. Quite unbelievable really.

I will be reverse engineering the circuit diagram for this control unit and comparing it with existing diagrams in the manuals. Much of the wire sheathing is hardened so all will be replaced and the unit 'meggered' when complete.

However, one little conundrum I have is this...

The dust collector unit (which I don't have) plugs in to this big brass-bodied socket on the machine. It has four identically sized and equi-spaced pins. Three of these pins are connected to L1,2 and 3 directly from the isolator box. This wiring looks original.

Strangely though there is nothing on the body of this socket to orientate a plug that might go onto it. And the pins won't do this for the reasons given earlier!

So, J&S experts, what's going on here / what am I missing?

Gerry