Question re rebushing Atlas 618 countershaft Hanger spindle

(1) No.

(2) It probably won't hurt to drill the holes. One other member here reported that after drilling holes, the operating temperature dropped from hot after a few minutes to not much above ambient. I can only assume that the bushings that he used were sintered bronze and not brass. You will, however, have to fill the cups more frequently. If you decide to drill the holes, drill them before you run the reamer through. After the first three or four oilings, you might put a low density felt plug in the oil cups to retard the oil drainage rate.
 
Personally, I would never ream an oilite bushing or drill a hole through it. I know people do both, but neither is really recommended by the manufacturer.
 
Well, normally I would agree about the reamer. But as the two bushings do not quite line up, he has little or no choice. I probably wouldn't drill the holes, either. But the main consequence there is that the cup will drain much more quickly.
 
wa5cab said:
Well, normally I would agree about the reamer. But as the two bushings do not quite line up, he has little or no choice. I probably wouldn't drill the holes, either. But the main consequence there is that the cup will drain much more quickly.
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I finally managed to get the spindle to fit the new bushings by resharpening the "D" reamer I had made a few days ago and just kept at winding it through the offending bushing slowly, a (very) little at a time , rinse and repeat. The fit is tight, but I will work at it till I finally have it turning freely. At some point in the future I will make a new countershaft arrangement using pillow blocks. What it looks like doesn't matter as long as it works.
 
I have been lurking on this thread and learned something.

For years I have been oiling the counter shaft oil holes on my 618. They are awkward to get at, or at least see, so I added a brass tube to each to hold more oil. However they always seemed to be full, and I never see free oil coming from the shaft interface. They must just be impregnated sintered bronze bushings and the hole doesn't go through the bushing. So I can take that job off my list.

David
 
David S said:
I have been lurking on this thread and learned something.

For years I have been oiling the counter shaft oil holes on my 618. They are awkward to get at, or at least see, so I added a brass tube to each to hold more oil. However they always seemed to be full, and I never see free oil coming from the shaft interface. They must just be impregnated sintered bronze bushings and the hole doesn't go through the bushing. So I can take that job off my list.

David
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You might want to take a closer look at the hanger countershaft spindle. If you disassemble the countershaft unit you might find what I found; the spindle on mine was badly scored from lack of lubricant and the oilite bushing on the side where the large pulley belt runs to the motor has been enlarged. Some years back I talked to a man with 0ver 50 years in the machining trade. He told me that he did not like oilite bushings at all. My belief (and that is all it is- I can't prove what I am about to say), is that those bushings are only going to work for a limited length of time. After all, how long can they logically be expected to hold the oil that they were manufactured with, and how can dripping a few drops of oil into an oil port be expected to soak into the whole bearing? The manufacturers state that the bushing can be "recharged" with oil by immersing the bushings into a container of oil and heating up to a specified temperature ( I don't remember how hot). Those instructions make it sound like dripping some oil into a port for installed bushings is not going to work for very long.
 
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