I crashed my auto quill feed when I had the spindle all the way up and the feed direction was set to retract. (I had it in the wrong direction). It made a clicking sound and I quickly shut off the power to the mill.
Now the fine feed handle only rotates about 300 degrees. It feels like it gets to a solid stuck point going either way. Its not a "squishy" stuck like there is a chip in gear.
I took off the cover for the fine feed speed adjustment, all 6 gears seem fine, and I can rotate them by hand, but there is a point in the rotation that it gets significantly harder to rotate, but I can push past it.
I took the quill clutch assembly off and inspected it, the bevel gear seems fine as well as what I can see from the worm gear above it.
The quill moves up and down freely by the coarse feed handle. But engaging the fine feed and it will only rotate most of a rotation, not completely.
I suspect I did some damage to the gear set in the top of the lower section of the mill head, the gears that drive the quill from the spindle rotation. I have been trying to get to them, but the 3 nuts that hold on the upper head have been a pain to remove. I have two out, but the 3rd one in the back is nice and round now. I'm pretty much down to grinding it off at this point and replacing the bolt and nut.
Before I get deeper into this rabbit hole, I wanted to see if anyone else has had a similar problem and could offer some advice. Hopefully tonight I'll be able to get into the top of the lower section of the mill head and look around.
So far I haven't found any damage as to why the fine feed wheel won't rotate.
Now the fine feed handle only rotates about 300 degrees. It feels like it gets to a solid stuck point going either way. Its not a "squishy" stuck like there is a chip in gear.
I took off the cover for the fine feed speed adjustment, all 6 gears seem fine, and I can rotate them by hand, but there is a point in the rotation that it gets significantly harder to rotate, but I can push past it.
I took the quill clutch assembly off and inspected it, the bevel gear seems fine as well as what I can see from the worm gear above it.
The quill moves up and down freely by the coarse feed handle. But engaging the fine feed and it will only rotate most of a rotation, not completely.
I suspect I did some damage to the gear set in the top of the lower section of the mill head, the gears that drive the quill from the spindle rotation. I have been trying to get to them, but the 3 nuts that hold on the upper head have been a pain to remove. I have two out, but the 3rd one in the back is nice and round now. I'm pretty much down to grinding it off at this point and replacing the bolt and nut.
Before I get deeper into this rabbit hole, I wanted to see if anyone else has had a similar problem and could offer some advice. Hopefully tonight I'll be able to get into the top of the lower section of the mill head and look around.
So far I haven't found any damage as to why the fine feed wheel won't rotate.
