# South Bend 13" Bearing Adjustment and Lift



## Greenlee (Jun 25, 2021)

My name is Paul Greenlee, I'm 69 years old and was a career welder for 40 years. I have already forgot everything I knew but I have some limited experience machining. I have always wanted to learn more and have something to play with making projects. I own a 13" south bend lathe that was a mess, well still is to a point. It seems when it comes to bearing adjustments that everyone chimes in with a different method and version of how to do it. This is my opinion on how to be successful especially if you are a hobbyist like me. I'm not telling anyone that this is the only way because it isn't. My rear bearing was a mess. I bought a felt kit and a ILion's restoration booklet because these guys are supposed to be the experts at taking apart and reassembly of equipment down to every nut, bolt, and screw. I am basically following the guide lines of ILion and this is what I came up with to lift 75# to 85# and hold it for at least 20 seconds or more to dissipate the coating of oil that surrounds the bearing. I bought a cheap 100# hanging scale for $25.00 off eBay and used my engine lift with the boom all the way out. I removed the bolt-pin and put it in the last hole then set the stick back in it. I gave me a little more length to work with. I'll post the pictures and as I said this is to share an idea and that's all. If you already have a proven method then that's great. I hope this will help someone. I only had to put the left leg down on the engine lift which made it great to get in the exact position needed. 
Thanks for looking, you have a great looking Forum


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## Nogoingback (Jun 25, 2021)

Welcome to the group Paul!


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## markba633csi (Jun 25, 2021)

Hi Paul, looks like a reasonable way to do it.  What kind of clearances are you getting?  
How does your lathe do on the two-collar test?  That's where the rubber meets the road, so to speak
-Mark


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## Greenlee (Jun 25, 2021)

Thank you.
I am working my way down through a new shim pack all the way around. I am disabled and I don't have the physical strength to do a lift test any other way. I have found this helps me get great readings. My lathe has been down for over a year, being a beginner it took a long time and questions on PM. Great suggestions but had to work through them. I was going to start from the beginning but it's a long story. My shims were all 0.0325 thick as best I could measure. Now they are 0.027 each front and clearance is 0.008" with 80# lift and 0.0285 each rear and a clearance of 0.006 with 80# of lift. It's been a nightmare. 
I don't know what a two-collar-test is. I guess I could try and tell my story without all the drama now that It's been figured out and I'm sure it would help someone.


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## Greenlee (Jun 25, 2021)

Doesn't look like I did the multiple reply correctly, sorry


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## Janderso (Jun 25, 2021)

Greenlee said:


> My lathe has been down for over a year, being a beginner it took a long time and questions on PM


Welcome,
Some forums can be brutal. You are welcome here sir.
What are you doing about the bearings?
You mentioned one was messed up. How's the spindle? It should be highly polished.


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## Greenlee (Jun 26, 2021)

Janderso said:


> Welcome,
> Some forums can be brutal. You are welcome here sir.
> What are you doing about the bearings?
> You mentioned one was messed up. How's the spindle? It should be highly polished.


Long story short, I bought a South Bend Lathe 13"x72", 1960 model that was only 850 plus miles away. That was April, 2019. I had a cousin and neighbor drive me up from Theodore Alabama and we picked it all up. I turned it on and it was running on low speed. This was the only speed that

the guy who sold it ran it on. Joe, owner had just bought it from an old machinist but he had to have an emergency surgery and ended up having to sell what he bought. I got it home and started cleaning on it as I could depending on how much energy I had. I was asked if I could make a cone

to house a GPS device for a one man helicopter. Everything went great until I went to a higher speed to polish and then the rear bearing over heated and locked up. The cone turned out good, no rocket science and random holes on the end to hold it in place.

I had no choice but to remove the bearing caps and see what was going on. The capillary spring oilers were shot, the small bearing capillary broke in half. On the front the old machinist put 3 shims that sat on top of the expander. There was 0.010 difference between the inside and outside of

the rear bearing and on the front I will have to look at my notes to tell you but it was about .008 difference between side to side when it's said not to have any difference more than .001 from inboard to outboard.

I went through a year long ordeal because of a lack of experience on the South Bend. PM members did a lot to help me understand even when I got off on a tangent. I bought new shims but the rear bearing was shot too. Somebody putted the expander through it. I had to buy a new bearing

and it set me back $186.00 then I found a used one that looked brand new on eBay for $49.00. I removed the out of normal 3 metal shims for the expander on the front bearing and put it back together. No matter what I did the rear bearing ran hot when you tried to adjust it according to the

South Bend 4 page pamphlet. The spindle would not spin at all just sitting in the Headstock with the bearing caps off. In fact it would spin before I took it apart and had to use the 4 jaw chuck key to pull it around.

So I went on a rant on PM saying the bore was out the bearing cap was out the spindle was out and so on. This was after doing the lift test and bearing clearance reading maybe 100 times over a course of a year.

I had 1 post that said, "I don't trust any of your measurements or readings and I think you need to start over with new capillary oilers and shim packs and change the felt out from the expander on the rear bearing.

So I did. I soaked the oilers for days along with the felt. Polished out the rear bearing and spindle, which is a used but good spindle from a running lathe and started with the shim pack all the way around at 0.0325"

Using my lift method I have peeled off shims down to 0.025 front and .008 clearance and rear down to 0.0265 and clearance of .006 I have a little ways to go but I'm stopping here because I don't trust my indicator is accurate. My spindle spins like a top and I can run at any speed for as long as I want with no rear heating issues.

Yes, I do need to get down to the correct bearing clearance of 0.0007 to 0.015 or if I hit 0.002 I'm leaving it there. Time to finish cleaning it up and start making chips. I'm using a brass bar that is 24"x1.125" marked at the half way point and the rigging is 2-1/2" from the end to make each lift the same.

This is the first time since I got this lathe In 2019 that it has been up and running. I'll post a few pictures of it from eBay.


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## Greenlee (Jun 26, 2021)

Janderso said:


> Welcome,
> Some forums can be brutal. You are welcome here sir.
> What are you doing about the bearings?
> You mentioned one was messed up. How's the spindle? It should be highly polished.


Practical Machinist are a great bunch, I'm my own worst enemy. I looked at your Forum and took great interest in all of the avenues I can go down with beginners or hobbyist like me. There are a lot of pros at PM as I expect a lot of the same here. Thank you for the welcome, I feel right at home and I can't wait to get deeper into this site. God Bless


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## Greenlee (Jun 26, 2021)

markba633csi said:


> Hi Paul, looks like a reasonable way to do it.  What kind of clearances are you getting?
> How does your lathe do on the two-collar test?  That's where the rubber meets the road, so to speak
> -Mark


Mark, when you have time please explain the two-collar-test. Thanks


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## Greenlee (Jun 26, 2021)

Greenlee said:


> Long story short, I bought a South Bend Lathe 13"x72", 1960 model that was only 850 plus miles away. That was April, 2019. I had a cousin and neighbor drive me up from Theodore Alabama and we picked it all up. I turned it on and it was running on low speed. This was the only speed that
> 
> the guy who sold it ran it on. Joe, owner had just bought it from an old machinist but he had to have an emergency surgery and ended up having to sell what he bought. I got it home and started cleaning on it as I could depending on how much energy I had. I was asked if I could make a cone
> 
> ...


The rest of the lathe pictures I couldn't post. AND BY THE Way, what a great way to post pictures, clean and easy and 20 at a time.


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## markba633csi (Jun 26, 2021)

The two collar test means turning  two narrow bands about 10" apart  on a bar of stock held in the chuck approximately 1 inch in diameter, without changing the cross slide. On an ideal lathe the two bands would measure exactly the same.  Any difference in the two readings will be due to either wear in the bed and carriage and/or twist of the bed (most often) , but it can also reflect spindle issues such as bearing wear or misalignment of the headstock (less likely)
-M


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## Greenlee (Jun 26, 2021)

markba633csi said:


> The two collar test means turning  two narrow bands about 10" apart  on a bar of stock held in the chuck approximately 1 inch in diameter, without changing the cross slide. On an ideal lathe the two bands would measure exactly the same.  Any difference in the two readings will be due to either wear in the bed and carriage and/or twist of the bed (most often) , but it can also reflect spindle issues such as bearing wear or misalignment of the headstock (less likely)
> -M


Thank you I understand now what you mean but I had forgotten about it. It is one test that I will do after I get to the finial results adjusting the bearings. Removing one shim at a time from each shim pack and redoing the lift test will get me where I want to be to make this successful. You see, I didn't know to throw the shims peeled off in the garbage, I ironed them out or cut new ones but I removed shims until I got down to .012". I had to buy shim stock from McMaster-Carr. Nothing made sense when I first looked at the bearings with the caps removed other than I got screwed big time. The old machinist did what ever he could to make it run on slow speed. I have the old spindle and want to strip it down to see how it runs out when I finish what I have started.

Soaking the expander felt and oilers for a few days in oil made a big difference. I was shocked to see this spindle spin and spin after the power was turned off. What a relief to learn the hard way but still to learn how to take care of it. My wife said towards the end just sell it like it is and get something else smaller and newer. Of course I couldn't do that but I wasted a lot of money going in the wrong direction.


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## gard (Apr 20, 2022)

Thanks for the description and photos, After seeing it, I ended up attaching a block and tackle to the roof rafter to do the check of the bearing gap
 and also for replacing the spindle in the headstock. It sure made things a lot more controlled. I did a couple of measurements and it looks like the cap was originally machined with about 0.014" of shims. When I first checked I had 0.0035" of spindle movement with 0.0217 of shim. I made new shims from steel shim stock (that is what I had) by first clamping rectangular pieces between wood blocks then drilling on the mill then trimming each to size. I used 0.010", 0.007", 0.003" and 0.0015".  After a little trial and error I ended up at 0.0185" of shims with 0.0012" of bearing gap. I will recheck after using it for awhile. 
My felts looked good so I cleaned and reused them. On my lathe there is no drain for the spindle oil so I made a simple puller to remove the plug that the Gits oiler screws into.
I had to remove the small bearing to repair the expander. The gear is a press fit and I realized that when I have used a draw bar in the past I was pulling on the gear and it was thus slightly out of alignment to the reverser gear. To fix this I made a spyder that bottoms out on the spindle. That spyder has been on my project list for about 20 years.


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