Wells-Index 847 Milling Machine - Ownership Thread

[Just for fun]

Welcome to the site @Provincial I'm totally new to machining but the Wells-Index 847 looks like a nice mill. Nice to hear that your son has interest in machining.

I've been to Dallas, nice little town.

Tim

 

[Provincial]

Thanks Tim! I've been near Chelan, and to Twisp and Winthop. Beautiful country!

 

[wachuko]

Installed the hand wheel

 

[wachuko]

Now to remove, clean, regrease the spindle…

I want to check the condition of the bearings…

 

[wachuko]

Okay, let's try this again...

Took the spindle out. Everything looked fine and could not even hear the bearings. Everything turning smooth. This was a major relief. Watching all those videos of folks having to rebuild these units was not something I was looking forward to. Photo was from when I removed it... forgot to take a photo after cleaning... darn it!







A photo looking down the spindle housing... you can see the white plastic gear at the right end...



Side to side comparison of the cartridge bearing locknut I wanted to remove... I will try to redrill the holes and see if it can be saved. Would be nice to keep it as a spare. Was working fine, it just looked like shi**.



Mentioned that I installed the hand wheel..., also took the time to replace the bolt for the correct handle/knob that arrived.







Also installed the cover for the Servo power feed. Now looking at these photos...I realize how much cleaning is left to do...

 

[wachuko]

I also removed the motor, belts, etc. Wanted to clean in there... it was all full of grease/oil... just nasty...

Here, take a look... before:



And after...








I will remove all this again for further cleaning and repainting it... but the task at hand was to just inspect everything and determine if the spindle bearings were in good condition. Glad to see that they were... So everything got assembled back.



Then rotated the head back in place. I took the tramming tool with me, but did not have a chance to use it... need to do that as well.

I still need to redo the oiling system... that will be next...

Took the cheap vise from the house in Orlando... eventually I want to get a Kurt DX6 vise... but this will do for now.

 

[wachuko]

The only thing that I was not able to service were the bearing on the pulleys... I could not get this plate to come out... and I did not spend much time trying to do so... I was pressed for time and figured that I would tackle this later. I need to remove the burs on the side that is not allowing that plate to slide out...



And yes, I cleaned all those metal shavings... this was a "before" photo as I was removing the larger base...



I am not familiar with these machines, but to me, the bearings on this assembly were making more noise than normal. So I want to replace those. Will look at the parts diagram and order those today...



After assembly... new cartridge bearing locking nut installed and also installed the four missing bolts on the cartridge bearing retainer...



With drawbar...

 

[wachuko]

Okay, so here are the parts I want to replace. From this diagram, that would be 3, 4, and 21

(1) 880-067-004 - Wavey Washer. - it is fine, but since going in there, might as well replace for a new one
(1) 885-001-031 - Top Bearing
(1) 885-002-032 - Bottom Bearing



And from this diagram I would like to replace 169, 170, and 171

(2) - 100-002-975 - R8 Key - I really do not know how often these break/shear off... just want to have a couple of spares.
(1) 100-002-974 - R8 Ring - this is the bronze ring that retains the R8 key in place. It is fine... figured I would get a spare one as well.
(1) 000-200-007 - Lower Bearing Retainer R8 - this one is fine, but during the life of this machine someone took a monkey wrench to it instead of just using the correct tool... purely cosmetic, but I want to replace it anyway... again, the one there is fine... Maybe once I find out the price of this one, I will think that those marks are fine .



And photos...



Here you can see the marks on that retainer nut...



And the brass ring that holds the R8 key from coming out...




R8 key

 

[Steve-F]

It should purr like a kitten after that!!

 

[wachuko]

It should purr like a kitten after that!!

It should... at least, that is what I am hoping for.

Any noise would have come from those bearings in the pulley area. The spindle assembly was dead quiet.

Email sent to Wells-Index asking for pricing on those parts.

Drawbar, for the power setup, should be here today.