ARC-170's Craftsman 101.07403 lathe restoration thread

First, I would remove the countershaft and the back gears. They don't absolutely have to come off at this point but if you go ahead and remove them, they won't be in the way and they have to come off anyway to get the spindle belt on as you reassemble the headstock.

Second, confirm that the bull gear, spindle cone pulley, small spindle gear and collar are free to move a little ways toward the right. In other words, that they are all free on the spindle. Also, pull out the direct drive pin if you haven't already.

Third, I would do what I suggested to start with which is get a piece of mechanical tubing with an ID just larger than the right hand dust cover and of a length approximately as long as the distance from the right end of the spindle to the face of the bull gear, or the distance between the collar and the left end of the spindle, whichever is greater. Plus a shoulder washer about 1/2" or more thick to fit the right end of the mechanical tubing and one to fit the left end of the spindle. Plus a length of 3/4" dia. all-thread with two nuts and two standard flat washers.

Assemble all of this on the headstock, oil or grease the threads, rotate the spindle so that the key and key way in the bull gear are at about TDC, and tighten the nuts as tight as you can get them with standard wrenches. If this doesn't start the spindle moving, with paddle bits, drill a flat bottom hole in a piece of 4 by 4 just large enough to fit over the nut and shoulder washer and threads on the left end of the spindle and deep enough that the 4 by 4 chunk will sit there without having to hold it. Hit this with the largest hammer that you have. Once the spindle starts moving, remember not to pull the Woodruff key too far and into the inner dust cover before you start trying to grab it with pliers and remove it. Also, shortly after the spindle starts moving, it will get a little harder to move as the right spindle bearing cone starts forcing the right dust cover out ahead of it. And except while you are fighting to get the Woodruff key out, keep two wood wedges between the bull gear and the headstock casting to prevent chipping the teeth on the casting.

Maybe that will work.
 
Robert:

I drew a sketch to make sure I understand your idea:
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The tube needs to have an ID of at least 3-1/16" to clear the dust cover. This will be hard to find at a big box store. I can look elsewhere, though.
The right cover (not labelled on this sketch, but it's the piece shown between the washer and the tube on the right) would be really big; I might just make a plate.
This is essentially a puller, right? I would rotate right nut and it would move the spindle out by pulling the threaded rod to the right, correct?
 
That is mostly correct, except for the following:

1) Both washers need to have a shoulder turned on them that is a slip fit inside the spindle on the left and the tube on the right.

2) The OD of the left washer should be just a few thou smaller than the diameter of the spindle threads JIC the left bearing cone is still tight after getting it as far as the threads.

3) The tube doesn't need to be that long. It does not have to hold the entire spindle

Forget big box stores. You can get everything that you need from McMaster.com. The hardest parts to make are the two shoulder washers. I bought a short piece of I think 3/4" x either 3-1/2" or 4" mild steel flat bar. With it sitting on a piece of wood in the vise on my drill press, I used a hole saw first to make it round. The wood was to keep the pilot drill in the hole saw from hitting the clamping screw in my vise. After making them round, I mounted them in the three-jaw on the lathe and drilled a center hole to fit over the screw. Then I made an arbor out of a piece of scrap round stock I had, mounted the washers on it (one at a time, of course), cleaned up the OD and cut the shoulders. As I've never been able to get my cutoff saw to cut square, I had to put the tubing in the 3-jaw and square up the ends.

The nuts that you should buy are called I think Coupling Nut. They are about twice as long as a regular hex nut, or a little more. Normally used to make a longer stud out of two shorter ones.
 
I got some tubing that will work. I also got some 3/4" threaded rod, nuts and washers.

1-2. How critical are the shoulder washers? I have some 1/4" steel plate I was going to drill a 3/4" hole in for the threaded stock and just mount on the ends. Does the shoulder keep it from slipping? I think I can make some shoulder washers at work if they are absolutely necessary. I also thought of using a hole saw to make a round, recessed ring on the plates for the spindle ends to seat in.

3. How critical is it that the ends of the tube be perfectly square? I got a piece of scrap from work. It's about 9" long. One end is fairly square, but the other is a bit off. I can grind it down and sand it on a wide belt sander to get it fairly square.

I was hoping that once I broke loose the spindle, I could use a hammer to get it out the rest of the way. I'm thinking it's just stuck and needs some "persuasion" to get it to move. Although, the hammer didn't work...
 
1-2. 1/4" plate might be heavy enough to work for the left hand washer but is probably too light for the larger right hand one. You might get away with using two or three layers on the right hand one. I would glue them together so that you can handle it as one piece. The shoulders on the two washers aren't absolutely critical. In fact, as you are using 3/4" threaded rod, probably not necessary on the left end, although it would center up the rod. But without it on the right end, it will probably take two people to get everything in place.

3. It is pretty important that the ends of the tube be square, important enough that I would recommend you take the piece of scrap somewhere and have the ends squared up.

Once you get the spindle moving, you could go back to using a hammer. But I don't know why you would want to. The wrenches on the nuts give you much better control which may be fairly critical when it comes to getting the Woodruff key out without damaging the right hand inner dust cover.
 
21. I got it! Here's a picture of the setup (minus the two wrenches I used to turn the nuts):
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It pulled off really well, even without squaring up the ends of the big tube. I used a wood rod to hit it out the rest of the way when the left side bottomed out (I just used a square piece of 1/4" thick steel plate that was too big to fit thru the hole). Once it broke loose it came off fairly easily.

22. Is the spindle is good condition? How do I get the bearing off? How do I clean/service these before re-assembly?
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23. Is this bearing race in good condition? It feels really smooth. These are the same bearing race from the right side of the lathe. The left image is after cleaning the goop out, the right image is before cleaning with the dust cover attached (the previous owner added a notch!).
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24. How do I pull this bearing out? This is the one on the left. Use the same tool I used for the spindle?
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24. No, the ID of the inner dust cover is too close to the ID of the smaller cone for you to be able to pull with something inserted from the right. Especially as you don't have a working lathe with which to make the part. The thing remaining to be pulled is the outer dust cover. Here I would probably use a slide hammer puller with a small three-jaw puller screwed onto the end to hook behind the bearing cone's inner race. That would be better than hooking it behind the inner side of the outer dust cover as the latter method would deform the dust cover. You should be able to rent one of those for a day or two.
 
#22 and #23. Are these in decent condition? Anyone have any input or know where I can find out? Should I take them to a local shop and ask?

#24. Got it out! Made a smaller puller to get the dust cover off, then used the original puller to get the bearing out. Funny how these won't budge when hit with a hammer, but come out real easy when gently pulled.
 
22 & 23. Just judging from the photos, they seem to be OK. But it would probably be wise to have someone local take a closer look at them.

22. Unless you are replacing it with a new cone, there is no reason to remove the larger cone from the spindle. If you do have to remove it for replacement, get a piece of tubing with an ID just large enough to slide over the register flange and use the threaded rod and other pieces to pull it, You may damage the cage in the process so don't pull it if you are going to reuse it.

22. Clean up with Varsol or equivalent solvent. As soon as it's clean, squirt some SAE 20 ND on the bearing and turn the cage and rollers by hand to distribute the oil. Do not dry the Varsol by directing HP air at the cage and rollers. Shake it off and after a few minutes start applying the oil.
 
#3 (Yes, number 3). for those of you following along or researching cleaning your machine, I found a description of the difference between Varsol, Mineral Spirits and Paint Thinner on a wood working website (https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread...difference&s=a506e8205da690d050bc60b3b820fdae ):

Mineral spirits is a distillate of petroleum. It's a hydrocarbon. Naphtha is also a similar distillate, but is lighter in molecular weight. Paint thinner is a catch all that can include these solvents mixed with others. Why mix? The key is that mineral spirits and naphtha are HYDROCARBONS. They are good solvents for things that are also oil based, but for products that contain materials that are not similar chemically, they won't dissolve that well. So, paint thinner might dissolve a wider array of things than the other two. It's cheaper generally because there's no standard formula, so mfg's have latitude about how to make it.

Varsol, Isopar, and other names are usually proprietary names from companies like Shell or Exxon to indicate precise fractions of the distillate; it just means a tighter bound on the molecular weight of the chemical in the jar, and hence a 'purer' product. In the case of Isopar, there are a bunch of letter grades depending on the weight you want. For us ww'ers, this means you pay a little more for something that provides no practical value. But for cosmetic or other companies, this purity may be useful for them.

Mineral OIL is just a heavy distillate of the very same material as Mineral Spirits. It's so heavy, though, it doesn't evaporate, which is why they use it as a 'finish' on things like cutting boards.

Thought I'd pass it along. I have found it very confusing when trying to find what is a good solvent to clean a greasy machine with, not to mention what other cleaners will also work.
 
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