My first Bridgeport

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Decided to go whole hog - I had 0.0005 runout before I took the quill apart to clean it so maybe should have left well enough alone but found a ton (TON!) of soft grease inside the quill and of course the bearings, especially the lower one, acted like I flushed trash into them.

I have a bearing kit on the way.

If the only lube getting into these bearings is supposed to be spindle oil, how come there's grease in here?

I found a bit of corrosion on some of the components inside the quill. It's obvious to me that some DPO has cleaned this machine with a power washer.

Top of spindle is mushroomed over so I'll take a grinding wheel and straighten that out so it'll go back up into the drive housing easily when the time comes.
 
A lot of spindles are grease lubricated. I actually tried that on my Rockwell, but it heated up too fast. I cleaned it back out and give it a good shot of oil before each operating day.

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Weldingrod1 said:
A lot of spindles are grease lubricated. I actually tried that on my Rockwell, but it heated up too fast. I cleaned it back out and give it a good shot of oil before each operating day.

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Bearings came in late this afternoon - I've got the spindle rebuilt and back in the quill. Easy to do with Barry's video. I used grease, but only a little - about a third of the way around the race after packing. He says if you use too much the spindle will heat up.
 
Finally got the housing back - got it painted and have started reassembly. The quill was not easy to get back in- extreme fitting tolerance... When I did get it back in, it's quite stiff near the very top but I can move it by hand throughout most of its travel.

Of course, with all the care I used in cleaning and keeping up with parts, I've still managed to lose the snap-ring that holds the microscrew in...

Update - my buddy found it on the floor some distance away- How in the world does this stuff happen?

Back to assembly-
 
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Petrolero said:
Finally got the housing back - got it painted and have started reassembly. The quill was not easy to get back in- extreme fitting tolerance... When I did get it back in, it's quite stiff near the very top but I can move it by hand throughout most of its travel.

Of course, with all the care I used in cleaning and keeping up with parts, I've still managed to lose the snap-ring that holds the microscrew in...

Update - my buddy found it on the floor some distance away- How in the world does this stuff happen?

Back to assembly-
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Got the power head and quill housing mated -

Worm gear should arrive today, then I can mount the head on the ram -

I'm going to need a tramming device - I saw one in a video that mounts in the collet - has space for two dial indicators. Anyone have any recommendations?
 
I use an Indicol type holder with a test indicator, those duel indicator tramming devices are kind of limited to tramming only. An indicator holder has many additional uses such as tramming your vise and locating hole centers.
 
Got it back mounted to the ram and running - there were a few 'moments' when I didn't think it was working right as I'm such a noob that even staying in a Holiday Inn Express last night did me no good...

It appears now to be working correctly, the sheared head rotation issue is fixed, though the rotation of the head is quite stiff.

Quill downfeed works the way it should - it disengages properly when the microscrew nut is pushed down.

Next step - put some metal in the vise and see how well it cuts.
 
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