- Joined
- Nov 29, 2015
- Messages
- 439
Well a few weeks back while attempting to get my Bridgeport table feed to quit letting it's magic smoke out. (There is another thread on that mess.) I decided to start working on the top end. The top end was making a horrible amount of noise that got worse as you increased the speed. My first thoughts were that it was pulley bushings like I see in every rebuild kit. But you can get a couple of different kits. This depends on the color of the bushings you have... either teal or black.
Finding out what you have requires pulling the motor. Being located on the very top of the machine made it look like a horrible job. Tons of people on various threads seem to be horrified by the weight of the motor. I think around 60 pounds or so. It's not tiny and pulling it off while 6 ft in the air on a ladder by myself wasn't the right way to go about it. About that time I ran into mrpete's video on removing his Bridgeport head using a table mount he made.
So I built a table mount. The mount uses a piece of round stock welded up to some plate with 3 gussets for stability. ...and a large washer to help displace some of the weight of the head sitting on it. The gussets I just cut the corners off of the plate I was using to build the thing with. I think the round stock was 1" and I turned it down to fit in the spindle. The idea is simple. Once you have the table mount in place you carefully raise the table until it's firmly into the spindle. Firmly but not forcefully. If you put pressure on the head removing it will be a bear. Once in place you can remove the 4 nuts holding it in place. Bring the table out towards you... It should come out pretty easily. *******UNLESS you don't realize that the ram is too far forward! I managed to not notice this and once I got to the end of the table travel was baffled as to why mine didn't come off like I had seen others do. I messed with this forever trying to move the head around until it finally came free. Only after that did I see that I could have simply moved the ram backwards allowing the head to come off. The only reason it was so far forward was for delivery using a forklift several months ago.
View media item 95821
I have a better picture of this I'll have to put up later.
Having the table all the way down and looking right at the motor instills much more confidence that it being over your head.
During this rebuild I am/was following The book "A guide to Renovating the Bridgeport "2J" Variable speed milling machine". Wonderful book for most of the steps. But as with any book they can only fit so many pictures. I have taken a couple hundred pictures of the assemblies as I went as well as pictures of what it looked like inside...dirty and cleaned. (Rick) wanted lots of pictures. Anyway, the point of so many pictures is to allow people to see the parts from several angles. Like you are holding the part in your hand and trying to figure it out! Most books and pictures you see avoid this just because of space. Frequently I'm pointing at things in the picture to show where something goes or something to watch for. So if you are looking at the thumbnail pictures there aren't a bunch of duplicates as it may appear. Just lots of angles.
Trying hard here to give back to this community.
http://www.hobby-machinist.com/gallery/albums/bridgeport-series-1-vs-2hp-tear-down.570/
I am still adding lots of pictures.
The motor was not too bad to remove once loose. I did stand on a milk crate and bear hug the thing after I worked it free of the belt. But you have to take pressure off of the lower Vari-disc by compressing a pulley spring using screws from the cap that covers the access to it.. ****NOTE the whole point is to remove this pulley spring together. Do NOT do what I did and unscrew the screws once you remove the snap ring! This spring is under a bunch of pressure and will shoot across the room! I have no idea why I did it but i happened....and the spring went flying after it bounced off the floor. Lucky it didn't hit me.
Once I had the motor off I was able to check out the bushings... mine were black and in good shape! So what in the world was causing the problems? At this point there was no reason to order a kit including bushings.
The first thing I ran into was in the belt housing... Something had gotten into the belt housing and ruined the timing gear. View media item 96011View media item 96010
Wonderful.
Next I found that the "Spindle pulley Hub" had some kind of issue where the Key Way was destroyed. I think this could have been a manufacturing defect as it seemed like the entire thing was too thin. Also, at the same time as I was disassembling the Spindle pulley hub... the Stationary Vari-disc at it's base is supposed to be held in place by a key...that matches the key way above. The key was gone....just gone.
View media item 96013View media item 96012
I continued and made my way down into the gear housing....but before I did that I got to looking at the gear housing plate...
View media item 95805
Huh... Something doesn't seem right... Oh it's this:
View media item 95807That's supposed to be one piece! And the smaller piece was just loose laying on top of the bull gear....
I will continue this as I have done a ton on this thing. I will be making complete picture albums for putting it all back together and I've started that process...just not put any of the pictures up yet.
Again the break down album (not yet complete) : http://www.hobby-machinist.com/gallery/albums/bridgeport-series-1-vs-2hp-tear-down.570/
Paul
Finding out what you have requires pulling the motor. Being located on the very top of the machine made it look like a horrible job. Tons of people on various threads seem to be horrified by the weight of the motor. I think around 60 pounds or so. It's not tiny and pulling it off while 6 ft in the air on a ladder by myself wasn't the right way to go about it. About that time I ran into mrpete's video on removing his Bridgeport head using a table mount he made.
So I built a table mount. The mount uses a piece of round stock welded up to some plate with 3 gussets for stability. ...and a large washer to help displace some of the weight of the head sitting on it. The gussets I just cut the corners off of the plate I was using to build the thing with. I think the round stock was 1" and I turned it down to fit in the spindle. The idea is simple. Once you have the table mount in place you carefully raise the table until it's firmly into the spindle. Firmly but not forcefully. If you put pressure on the head removing it will be a bear. Once in place you can remove the 4 nuts holding it in place. Bring the table out towards you... It should come out pretty easily. *******UNLESS you don't realize that the ram is too far forward! I managed to not notice this and once I got to the end of the table travel was baffled as to why mine didn't come off like I had seen others do. I messed with this forever trying to move the head around until it finally came free. Only after that did I see that I could have simply moved the ram backwards allowing the head to come off. The only reason it was so far forward was for delivery using a forklift several months ago.
View media item 95821
I have a better picture of this I'll have to put up later.
Having the table all the way down and looking right at the motor instills much more confidence that it being over your head.
During this rebuild I am/was following The book "A guide to Renovating the Bridgeport "2J" Variable speed milling machine". Wonderful book for most of the steps. But as with any book they can only fit so many pictures. I have taken a couple hundred pictures of the assemblies as I went as well as pictures of what it looked like inside...dirty and cleaned. (Rick) wanted lots of pictures. Anyway, the point of so many pictures is to allow people to see the parts from several angles. Like you are holding the part in your hand and trying to figure it out! Most books and pictures you see avoid this just because of space. Frequently I'm pointing at things in the picture to show where something goes or something to watch for. So if you are looking at the thumbnail pictures there aren't a bunch of duplicates as it may appear. Just lots of angles.
Trying hard here to give back to this community.
http://www.hobby-machinist.com/gallery/albums/bridgeport-series-1-vs-2hp-tear-down.570/
I am still adding lots of pictures.
The motor was not too bad to remove once loose. I did stand on a milk crate and bear hug the thing after I worked it free of the belt. But you have to take pressure off of the lower Vari-disc by compressing a pulley spring using screws from the cap that covers the access to it.. ****NOTE the whole point is to remove this pulley spring together. Do NOT do what I did and unscrew the screws once you remove the snap ring! This spring is under a bunch of pressure and will shoot across the room! I have no idea why I did it but i happened....and the spring went flying after it bounced off the floor. Lucky it didn't hit me.
Once I had the motor off I was able to check out the bushings... mine were black and in good shape! So what in the world was causing the problems? At this point there was no reason to order a kit including bushings.
The first thing I ran into was in the belt housing... Something had gotten into the belt housing and ruined the timing gear. View media item 96011View media item 96010
Wonderful.
Next I found that the "Spindle pulley Hub" had some kind of issue where the Key Way was destroyed. I think this could have been a manufacturing defect as it seemed like the entire thing was too thin. Also, at the same time as I was disassembling the Spindle pulley hub... the Stationary Vari-disc at it's base is supposed to be held in place by a key...that matches the key way above. The key was gone....just gone.
View media item 96013View media item 96012
I continued and made my way down into the gear housing....but before I did that I got to looking at the gear housing plate...
View media item 95805
Huh... Something doesn't seem right... Oh it's this:
View media item 95807That's supposed to be one piece! And the smaller piece was just loose laying on top of the bull gear....
I will continue this as I have done a ton on this thing. I will be making complete picture albums for putting it all back together and I've started that process...just not put any of the pictures up yet.
Again the break down album (not yet complete) : http://www.hobby-machinist.com/gallery/albums/bridgeport-series-1-vs-2hp-tear-down.570/
Paul
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