Time For A Head Rebuild?

[papermaker]

My belt from the countershaft to the spindle is worn pretty bad. I also noticed last night that when the belt is tightened it pulls the quill sideways about .010" would that indicate that it's time to replace the bushings/ bearing or is that normal in a Craftsman 6" lathe.
The lathe is still cutting great with no chatter. I dont want to continue to use it this way and risk damaging the shaft.

 

[Richard King]

My belt from the countershaft to the spindle is worn pretty bad. I also noticed last night that when the belt is tightened it pulls the quill sideways about .010" would that indicate that it's time to replace the bushings/ bearing or is that normal in a Craftsman 6" lathe.
The lathe is still cutting great with no chatter. I dont want to continue to use it this way and risk damaging the shaft.

It sounds to me it's time to make an adjustment. I am sure some of the Atlas experts can walk you through it. In the manual I have it shows the main spindle has Timken tapered roller bearings, so I would think there is a spanner nut you could tighten. Take a couple of pictures of your spindle and show us how your measuring it. Good luck!

 

[papermaker]

The first picture shows the dial indicator against the chuck and zero set.
The second picture is when there is tension on the the drive belt. It seems to me that there is about .008"play in the spindle.

 

[papermaker]

I found the missing .008"! You can see the wear between the arrows. I had a bugger of a time getting the spindle out. I got that apart and thought I would tackle installing a new belt. At some point in time the pulleys had spun a groove in the countershaft. Finally got everything apart and cleaned up. The threads where the locking collar on the drive end of the spindle we boogered up so i ran a die on that end of the spindle. ran a tap down through all of the set screw holes.
Just waiting for the spindle bushings to come that were ordered.

 

[papermaker]

I received the bushings yesterday and thought that it would be a piece of cake putting the spindle back together. Wrong! I put everything back together and everything was so tight that it was all I could do to turn the with a long screwdriver in the jaws of the chuck. I had to pull everything apart and use a pice of fine emery cloth on an arbor to remove some material from the inside of both bushings before i could turn the lathe over by hand. What a bugger!
The best part of the whole day was to change gears and cut threads. Thanks Jeff in Pa. !

- - - Updated - - -

I received the bushings yesterday and thought that it would be a piece of cake putting the spindle back together. Wrong! I put everything back together and everything was so tight that it was all I could do to turn the with a long screwdriver in the jaws of the chuck. I had to pull everything apart and use a pice of fine emery cloth on an arbor to remove some material from the inside of both bushings before i could turn the lathe over by hand. What a bugger!
The best part of the whole day was to change gears and cut threads. Thanks Jeff in Pa. !

- - - Updated - - -

I received the bushings yesterday and thought that it would be a piece of cake putting the spindle back together. Wrong! I put everything back together and everything was so tight that it was all I could do to turn the with a long screwdriver in the jaws of the chuck. I had to pull everything apart and use a pice of fine emery cloth on an arbor to remove some material from the inside of both bushings before i could turn the lathe over by hand. What a bugger!
The best part of the whole day was to change gears and cut threads. Thanks Jeff in Pa. !