Hello,
New user here. Site was recommended. On to the reason I’m seeking out some experienced help.
I recently bought a used Bridgeport 2J head mill. Upon getting it leveled and wired up I turned it on to hear quite the noise coming from the head. The noise is coming from direct drive only. The motor sounds nice in neutral and the back gears are quite quiet. Not used to gears being so quiet. But then comes the direct drive noise. At 1k rpms and below its fairly quiet, but from 1k to 2k rpms it gets real bad. Then from 2k to 3k it starts to quiet down some and the rattling becomes almost intermittent.
I’ve since had the head apart because the quill skirt was worn and sticking in the bore. I’ve repaired the skirt and reassembled the head. Here some things I took note of during the tear down.
The clutch dogs are worn some. I did manage to fix this a little bit by adjusting the engagement in the hi-lo selector. After doing this I had very little backlash, but there was still a tiny bit. This did not seem to fix the rattle noise at all, I was sure this would have helped some, but to my surprise not as much as I thought.
The backgears and drive belt all looked good. No missing teeth etc. again to my surprise really. But it’s dead quiet in Lo.
So now I’m kind of wondering what the noise is from? I’m starting to think I don’t have the correct alignment since I removed the castle nuts to fix the quill skirt. I will add here, that it certainly looked like someone had these nuts removed before I did and had the quill out. Could this simply be a an alignment problem? Do I need to float the head back into alignment?
I’ve read that I need to use a pony motor and remove the belt to take pressure off the spindle? Then lock these nuts down after letting it quiet down when finding center? Any other ideas on what the rattle is from? I’ve pretty much given up on the bearings being bad. I checked most when it was apart. Nothing is popping out as a significant source for the rattling. It’s not a grinding noise and it’s not constant across the entire rpm zone. Doesn’t make sense if it is a bearing. I’d be surprised
Well anyway, enough for now. Look forward to further discussion. I’ll try and get an audio source so you can hear it.
Jasin
New user here. Site was recommended. On to the reason I’m seeking out some experienced help.
I recently bought a used Bridgeport 2J head mill. Upon getting it leveled and wired up I turned it on to hear quite the noise coming from the head. The noise is coming from direct drive only. The motor sounds nice in neutral and the back gears are quite quiet. Not used to gears being so quiet. But then comes the direct drive noise. At 1k rpms and below its fairly quiet, but from 1k to 2k rpms it gets real bad. Then from 2k to 3k it starts to quiet down some and the rattling becomes almost intermittent.
I’ve since had the head apart because the quill skirt was worn and sticking in the bore. I’ve repaired the skirt and reassembled the head. Here some things I took note of during the tear down.
The clutch dogs are worn some. I did manage to fix this a little bit by adjusting the engagement in the hi-lo selector. After doing this I had very little backlash, but there was still a tiny bit. This did not seem to fix the rattle noise at all, I was sure this would have helped some, but to my surprise not as much as I thought.
The backgears and drive belt all looked good. No missing teeth etc. again to my surprise really. But it’s dead quiet in Lo.
So now I’m kind of wondering what the noise is from? I’m starting to think I don’t have the correct alignment since I removed the castle nuts to fix the quill skirt. I will add here, that it certainly looked like someone had these nuts removed before I did and had the quill out. Could this simply be a an alignment problem? Do I need to float the head back into alignment?
I’ve read that I need to use a pony motor and remove the belt to take pressure off the spindle? Then lock these nuts down after letting it quiet down when finding center? Any other ideas on what the rattle is from? I’ve pretty much given up on the bearings being bad. I checked most when it was apart. Nothing is popping out as a significant source for the rattling. It’s not a grinding noise and it’s not constant across the entire rpm zone. Doesn’t make sense if it is a bearing. I’d be surprised
Well anyway, enough for now. Look forward to further discussion. I’ll try and get an audio source so you can hear it.
Jasin
