Replacing the broken bearings in my pm1440gs headstock

[brino]

I get it that everyone's first impression of me and what I am doing is I'm a hack. I tried to go into this thing with all the info I needed, I asked a few people that had done similiar on other gearhead lathes, I asked the distributor for the machine and I asked here.

Hey Rich,

Don't let the critical yet useless reply of one crank get you down.
What I see from here is that you're trying your best to deal with a crappy situation.
I think we've all been there.

Take it slow and methodical.
Walk away when the frustration level gets high........personally I find this difficult to do, but have learned that, for me, I must do it.
(venting prevents ex..plo..si..on)

Got any pictures of the clip you need to remove, or shots from the manual?
That may help drive some ideas too.

One thing I have seen in the past is drilling holes in the sides of the jaws of a set of pliers to put pins in as custom snap ring pliers.
Maybe you can find a cheap pair of long nose pliers that you could sacrifice for that.

Good Luck!
-brino

 

[Firstgear]

If it does not have anything major wrong with it, you will do fine.
They answered my emails for support, we walked through troubleshooting, we came to a conclusion. They told me the parts were cheap for me to buy, they told me it was a simple matter of a slap hammer. They offered no procedures for me to follow, they told me the parts numbers were in the manual (they are not). If that is support to you, than yes, they offered me support. While I never expected them to fix my machine, I was expecting more than what I got. With upgrades this machine cost in excess of 6000.00 dollars. Again I know I was going to do the work, and for parts in the price range of these bearings I was not expecting them to pay ( dont get me wrong, I would have loved to hear, "hey, we have that bearing in stock, we will send 1 out to you"...
Sales support is different than, your machine is down, you are still under warranty, how can we help?

Would I buy from pm again? They are still on this list, grizzly moved up to number 1 for any Asian machine, I'd rather deal with a larger company with resources and support. They all have their problems, we've all heard the horror stories, but burn me once, shame on you...
Hopefully I move past this, even if it comes to selling off the parts and scraping the rest I'm moving on from the discussion. I either have a working machine at the end of this or a new piece of floor real estate for cnc machines.

I appreciate their problem with stocking every needed part. Part of why the PM machines are priced where they are is that he keeps the overhead down. Having been responsible for engineering and manufacturing there is a fine balance. When something is on the shelf and doesn’t move eventually you end up tossing the parts off and writing them off. Those parts also take up room. It’s a problem no doubt, but one I appreciate both sides on.

 

[Firstgear]

This is the one of the things that I hate about being a mechanic. Having to take half the machine apart to get to a seal or bearing in this case. Engineers never think of the end user or person that has to work on it. Good luck.

Having been responsible for product engineering in my career I appreciate your perspective. But engineering has challenges of weight (I.e. powder spray gun), size and cost in addition to function. When you are juggling those sometimes service ease gets challenged. The other issue is speed to market. Senior mgmt wants it now to generate dollars, I have had my fair share of “discussions” about needing just a bit more time to make it better versus rushing to market because ultimately it was the engineers that had to rush fixes in after the fact.

 

[richl]

This is why that type of puller won't help till the shaft is out. I bought a far less wonderful puller from harbor freight, when the shafts are out.
Bruno, thanks for the idea, I just came back from a run in lowes where I picked up these

I figure I can either wire weld or silver solder the pins from the slip ring pliers to the long handle ones
As for shots of the pin, the gear is a bit hard to see as is, it is not very photogenic
Oh, here is a pick of the inside cover for the bearing

Nice ring of metal filings. She was loud even hand turning

I'm waiting on parts still. Going to take the weekend off. Monday I'm going to start pulling the shaft outta the head, looks like a slow process

 

[Firstgear]

Keep at it....when you get frustrated, walk away and come back later...You have all of us rooting for you.

 

[Cadillac]

Here are some pics of the tools I was talking of. First one works really good is small mine alittle different in having a short bar on the side where that lump of metal is at

Snap rings can be a bear luckily these have been in oil so you shouldn’t have to worry about it being seized in the groove. Dealing with large snap rings are hard in the fact the squeeze pressure to get out of the groove is a lot for a pair of pliers that long and to keep the points in the hole while your struggling to compress it. I’ve had a lot fly across the room let me tell ya. These with a locking handle help a lot once the clip is compressed it’s just finding the hole to slip out.

 

[mmcmdl]

I get it that everyone's first impression of me and what I am doing is I'm a hack. I tried to go into this thing with all the info I needed, I asked a few people that had done similiar on other gearhead lathes, I asked the distributor for the machine and I asked here. If I had known the plate was in the 3/8" thick area, I would have approached this differently.

I work on equipment every single night that I have never seen , don't know what they do , don't know how they operate etc . A hack ? You get the job done with the resources you have and move on , no such thing as a hack in this trade .

 

[BGHansen]

View attachment 296162View attachment 296163
This is why that type of puller won't help till the shaft is out. I bought a far less wonderful puller from harbor freight, when the shafts are out.
Bruno, thanks for the idea, I just came back from a run in lowes where I picked up these View attachment 296164
I figure I can either wire weld or silver solder the pins from the slip ring pliers to the long handle ones
As for shots of the pin, the gear is a bit hard to see as is, it is not very photogenic
Oh, here is a pick of the inside cover for the bearing
View attachment 296165
Nice ring of metal filings. She was loud even hand turning

I'm waiting on parts still. Going to take the weekend off. Monday I'm going to start pulling the shaft outta the head, looks like a slow process

I have no skin in the game here, just curiously following your thread. What's the source of the shavings? Bearing race, balls, shaft? With all the work you are going through it'd really stink to have to repeat the work for the same failure mode. Sure would be nice to know exactly what happened so you can verify the replacement components before you put it all together. You'd hate to find that the headstock holes are bored out of line to each other and end up with a repeat failure from a bound bearing (for example) from an out of line problem.

Great job so far keeping at it and posting facts on your experience instead of emotion.

Bruce

 

[Janderso]

I too have been following along with interest.
Please tell us you aren’t sourcing the same bearings?
Who was it that bought a PM1340GT and replaced the bearings and painted it right out of the gate?
He would be a good reference.
Keep cool man, you only want to do this once.
I’m glad you are getting help from the group.
Great forum.

 

[NortonDommi]

These are not cheap but is there anywhere you could borrow or rent from: Multipull blind bearing puller.
Sykes-Pickavant