Boxford lathe spindle bearings

A tale of woe starting here. Went to turn a bit of 4mm diameter steel down last night for a 4Ba thread. FWD direction Ok, then just a little in reverse to put a chamfer on the end of the rod and there was a terrible noise from the front spindle bearing. Started to strip it down, but am having to make a tool to pull the spindle out. I will be using a piece of 18mm threaded rod passed thro the spindle to pull it out as it hasn't moved under the persuasion of the copper mallet!
BobH
Ps - looked on the Denford site and saw photos of similar procedure.

You could do a lot worse than try on the yahoo boxford site. Guy called Neils has a lot of practical experience with spindle and head problems/modifications.

**LINK**

Mark

thanks Mark, Your link needs a member log in I think - anyway, I logged in and downloaded various files, from which I can see how i thangs together, but didn't see anything about the actual job. Anyway, I have now got the spindle out and the front bearing off. I have cleaned it all up but can't see anything wrong with it so I hope it was a bit of swarf trapped in there somewhere. I will let you know what happens when it all goes back again.
BobH

Postscript - It all came apart, but took quite a load on the puller to come out. Best advice I can give is think about making some sort of extraction tools before you start as you may need a lathe to make them. After removing the front spindle bearing, I washed it and dried/re-lubricated and could not see any damage on the rollers. The washing tray did have bits of swarf in it, so I am hoping that that was the problem. Anyway, its all back together and sounds a lot better. Clocked it and can't detect any radial or end play.
BobH

Bob, Sorry about the link - I was logged in when I made the link so that is probably why it came up needing a log on. You are welcome to join, we are all friendly and there is lots of information.

Glad you got your problem sorted, Although you have assembled it all now I hope you only smeared the bearing with grease as opposed to loading it as you might a wheel bearing. If you load them up they get quite hard to set the pre-load and you might find it reluctant to get going at top speed but a bit of running should fix that and you might just have to check the pre-load a few times.

Mark

Yes, it did run a bit warm, but not as hot as the oil I heated the front bearing up in before fitting. Usual dodge, spindle in the deep freeze for 2 hours, bearing in hot oil and it still took a bit of thumping to seat the bearing up to the collar. I did fill the angular grooves in the front bearing cup with grease, as I assume that these protect the bearing from swarf and cutting oil. If they are meant to be empty, it is only a 5 minute job to clean them. I will have another go at the Boxford site.
BobH
Ps, waiting for a new length of 'T' link to arrive - the old bit has had 20 odd years of use and the 'rivets' are working loose.

If you want to change the bearings I collected the info from the yahoo group and put it in a thread here

**LINK**

When people ask Neils usually post a link to the first time they were mentioned. There are other mentions about but Denver who doesn't seem to around there now collected it all together. Yahoo' search is pretty useless so thought it aught to be around on here as well.

Like several people have I found that the Boxford preload setting didn't work out. I reckon that is down to 2 things. More and more grease added over the years and general bearing wear. I used heat by checking the spindle under the rear bearing with a finger. Not just warm but rather warm but well short of hot. It's worked well but now shows that the front outer shell has worn a little oval.

John

AKA Ajohnw - no idea why it's different on here.

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Hi Speedy.

The Tee link belt on my Boxford is old and needs changing. I just haven't got around to doing it yet. The ends of the belt links have started to curl up. Which brings me to my point. When running the lathe in reverse the curled up ends catch as they pass through the machine from the base to the headstock. The first time it happened it frightened the life out of me.

I'm wondering if this was your problem rather than contaminated bearings??

Steve.

You may well be right, as I took the rear belt cover off and in reverse, the belt vibrates back and forth about 1", but I couldn't see that it fouled on anything, however there is a cyclic throb which is at belt speed - I would need a strobe light to see which part of the belt it was, but as said, there are a few links where the "T" stud is loose in its link. Found 2m of belt on flea bay at £13/M.
BobH