Kurt D688 vise tear down and rebuild

Mill Lee farm

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H-M Supporter Gold Member
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Mar 31, 2015
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397
Hello all,
Came home from work today and pulled the Kurt vise I’ve listed for sale out of it’s hiding spot.
(You can NOT ESCAPE!!!)

The intention was to clean it up for some good pictures….

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Then I decided to dig in a little deeper and start cleaning:

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Might as well pull the fixed jaw.
For future reference you need a 1/2” allen drive and the biggest breaker bar you can find! OMG was that tight! I was a little scared…. But they finally broke loose

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Ewww… some nasty gunk and rust in the keys there….

Now to take the screw out:

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Hmmmm….. the thrust washer won’t come off…. Theres a raised lip around the snap ring groove?!?
A little gentle filing to get rid of the lip and the washer comes off:

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Tap the screw through and out of the vise body:

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Man… that’s some NASTY crud under there!!!


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After come cleaning in the kerosene bucket I spin the screw out:

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Ok…. Wait a minute…

This doesn’t look like the exploded diagram:


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Where is the inside thrust washer and thrust bearing?!?…..

And is that an O-ring in their place?!?

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NO! Never mind! That’s a seal O-ring.
But the washer and thrust washer are missing…

Are the still in the vise body???

Uh oh……. :eek 2:

What the hell is going on here???

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Ewwwww…….

This is all thats left of the thrust bearing and thrust washer!?!?
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Looks like that vise has seen much better days! Wow, pretty messy and sad. Hope it cleans up for you.
 
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Kurt rebuild kit shipped today:angel:
Looks like it’ll get here Wed maybe?

Meanwhile, these 2 little O-rings under the movable jaw intrigued me…
Part # 22 on the previously posted parts diagram.

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So I’m in the Rural King today (it’s new in town) and looking through the O-ring section…

Hmm…. I’ll bet you the 008 part number corresponds to a #008 size???
3/16” x 5/16”

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Sure nuff!!!!

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Also, I emailed Kurt customer service because the jaw label/stickers aren’t available to purchase.

I told them I was rebuilding a D688, ordered a rebuild kit already, and would like to refresh the stickers. Can I buy them?

That was yesterday…
Today I get a nice email from a friendly person at Kurt asking for my mailing address!!!

They’re shipping stickers for free!!! :applause:

Wow…. That’s customer service!
 
Simple but I'm following...
 
I've rebuilt probably 8-10 or so Kurt vises from all sorts of different vintages. The overall theme hasn't changed much, but there have been lots of minor design tweaks over the years.

The Kurt customer service team are FANTASTIC at helping identify which version you've got and what parts you need for a rebuild.

Nothing but high praise for those folks. They're more than willing to send along schematics, parts diagrams, assembly details, etc. for all the discontinued vises that are no longer on the website.
 
I rebuilt 5 at work last year. Good fun. After I rebuilt them, I started following the recommended service of them. It is amazing how much builds up under the jaws in just a month.

Great pictures showing the steps by the way. It will be very helpful for people in future referbs.


Cutting oil is my blood.
 
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