Adventures in Bijur metering valve cleaning... It is said that it can't be done.
I may have stumbled onto a method that works.
Short Version: (YMMV)
Required materials: Brake Cleaner, Berrymans Carb Cleaner, Dawn Dish Soap, Old Sauce Pan, Marinade Syringe, various hoses and adapters.
Required Permits: Permission from your Better-Half to use the stove. Unless alternative method of heating is available.
Remove the FJB-1's, FJB-0's or what have you from the manifolds. Don't forget the ones on the pump itself. (I did.)
(take note of which ones went in which holes...)
- Soak in Brake Cleaner for an hour or so, agitating as much as possible.
- Toss into the Berrymans. Allow to soak. Take Better-Half out to dinner in preparation for Step 3.
- Half fill the sauce pan with a large amount of Dawn and H2O. Toss in the valves, bring to a rolling boil.
After steps 1 & 2, with another syringe, attempt to flush out the crap in the openings of the valves using whatever you want to.
Rig up the Marinade Syringe to thread on to the end of the valve. Get a bowl of hot tap water with Dawn ready in the slop sink.
(I have got to finish remodeling the portion of the house where the slop sink is going to be installed...)
I took them one at a time from the boiling water, hooked them up to the syringe (mind the direction of the arrow) and then forced fed more Dawn through them. It takes some time and effort. Took awhile, and a couple were stubborn so I just tossed them back into the pan to boil some more.
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As I reckon - the trick here is to get the 'wax' and 'varnish' build up out of the valves and the Heat along with the Dawn breaks down the wax to allow for cleaning.
It is stated in several places on the Web that you have to replace the FJBx metering valves, that there is no known way to clean/repair them. Well @ $15/ea that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.
And after reading several threads it would seem that everything under the sun has been attempted.
Prepping for the DRO install, I was checking out the extent of the 'X' travel of the table, which I had not done since acquiring the BP.
I imagine that somewhere in the 'New to Me - Used Machinery Checklist Book for Dummies' there's a section on verifying the oil passages - which I skipped over.
I didn't know that the table would travel enough to expose the cross slide. And sure enough the passages were packed and solidified.
And here I've been yanking the handle on the Bijur since Summer of '15. (Here's your Sign...)
Upon researching teardown of the table, screw, saddle, ETC. I decided, due to a number of factors, that wasn't going to happen.
Now if I had a properly structured shop with 10' (min.) ceiliings and a rail hoist...
I jerry-rigged the pieces of two grease guns I had laying around to use as an oiler. (Leaks like a sieve unfortunately.)
Disconnected the manifold hose from the pump and disconnected the nylon hoses from the valves mounted on the manifold.
BTW, on this model, Bijur uses 5/32" compression fittings, and they have 5/16"-24UNF threads.
Hooked up the "Model JR-1" Oiler Gun and started feeding the manifold using ISO32. Released the plug at the end to bleed off air and kept on pumping.
Only (2) of the (8) valves showed any seepage at all and what flow they were showing was pitiful.
I then made up another adapter to fit the lines and proceeded to pump oil through them to check the flow to the slides.
Had pretty decent success, only problems were one on the right side of the knee at the column and one on the right side saddle that put up a bit of a fight but were flowing finally after some coaxing with brake cleaner and WD-40 being forced upon them.
I realized that the proper way to have done this would have been to dis-assemble everything, but I just don't have the where-with-all to perform those tasks currently.
