# Bridgeport head trauma



## Cooped_Up (Nov 4, 2020)

So I have a BP, and I adopted a new motor on to it because the old one croaked. so today I went to put it into High gear and all I got was horrible grinding noises and the step pulley was jumping up off the dogs on the direct drive. I ended up taking the head apart, and I found some troubling things. The low gear shifter seems pretty worn, the dogs are beat up badly, the upper larger bearings with the large spring clip has blown out the place for the spring clip. also when I had split the head into the upper and lower sections, the spline for the spindle was very difficult to rotate, I don't know if this is normal but figured I would note it. The mill has been in high gear in the past, it sounded fairly bad so I think I have bad bearings somewhere, anyone know what bearings I need to replace?


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## middle.road (Nov 4, 2020)

Which style of head are we dealing with here?


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## Cadillac (Nov 4, 2020)

In your first picture below the low gear pulley what is all the wear on the housing? Looks like  somehow there was some downforce causing that snap ring to blow out it’s groove. Wouldn’t think the spring would have enough force to do that. Shift fork does look worn shouldn’t have pressure on it in either direction.


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## pontiac428 (Nov 4, 2020)

I'm drawing a blank on how to repair that casting where the bearing retainer broke out.  Replacement may be your only option, the metal that you have left to work with looks too contaminated to weld.  That's some ugly damage, but if you can get replacement parts it would be fine.  Sometimes, you can find people parting out a multi-head mill.  Maybe it's an opportunity to get a variable speed head upgrade.


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## Gaffer (Nov 4, 2020)

Check with Barry at H&W. He is very knowledgeable and helpful and was a great help to me repairing the head on my Bridgeport clone. He supplied the parts, tips, and tricks, and I did the work. He has many great Youtube videos on rebuilding Bridgeports.





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## hwelecrepair (Nov 5, 2020)

The housing that is broken is obsolete.  I would definitely recommend giving a call to the people mentioned by @Gaffer 

Is that allowed?

Jon


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## Cooped_Up (Nov 8, 2020)

I have great news, I was able to obtain a parts head for cheap so I will be able to replace all the worn parts. hopefully, I don't run into any problems but I'm still going to have to get replacement bearings from H&W


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