Newbie and the Bridgeport

[Technical Ted]

Yes, the book shows this and much, much more.... a lot of good information; well worth the price. I think you'll really benefit from it. I did.

Here's a link that shows this missing piece in more detail:

High-low shift lever assembly.

The ball does come off the handle I just had no reason to take it off.

www.hobby-machinist.com

Do some searching on line and you might be able to find the missing part. If not, buy the replacement.

If you get the new replacement part you can adjust by how the handle is "timed" as you say. You are simply adjusting the position of the bull gear (vertically meshing with the smaller pinion gear) with this adjustment. You want the two gears to be ~ flush with each other in hi and adjusted so they don't touch when in neutral. You'll also need the correct Mobil grease which you can get from H&W.

Ted

 

[Ceej0103]

Yes, the book shows this and much, much more.... a lot of good information; well worth the price. I think you'll really benefit from it. I did.

Here's a link that shows this missing piece in more detail:

High-low shift lever assembly.

The ball does come off the handle I just had no reason to take it off.

www.hobby-machinist.com

Do some searching on line and you might be able to find the missing part. If not, buy the replacement.

If you get the new replacement part you can adjust by how the handle is "timed" as you say. You are simply adjusting the position of the bull gear (vertically meshing with the smaller pinion gear) with this adjustment. You want the two gears to be ~ flush with each other in hi and adjusted so they don't touch when in neutral. You'll also need the correct Mobil grease which you can get from H&W.

Ted

Ted, thanks...I'm going to order the book now. Looks like I can't get it for about 7 days with Amazon holding back non-essential orders. I probably will just order the replacement instead of milling one. Same for the plunger. I'll pick up some of their grease when I'm at it. I was wonder what grease I was going to use, but that will solve the problem. What isn't clear at this point, during reassembly, is what requires grease. I would assume anything with gears should get grease, but areas like the gears attached to the cradle assembly came out dry. Those areas weren't packed with grease and the gears were relatively clean and in good shape. Obviously the bull gear gets grease...I've seen Barry's videos and know that part. What about the worm gear that drives head tilt....what about the clutch assembly....what about the cradle?....so many questions.

 

[Technical Ted]

You are going to love that book! It answers all these questions and much more. The book recommends Super Lube for the head worm tilt wheel/gear. I bought a big tube of it because I use it for a lot of things and it's much cheaper this way. You can get smaller tubes if you like, but it's nice stuff to have on hand and I use it all the time for a variety of things.

Amazon.com : Super Lube 41150 Synthetic Grease (NLGI 2), 14.1 oz Cartridge : Industrial & Scientific

Amazon.com : Super Lube 41150 Synthetic Grease (NLGI 2), 14.1 oz Cartridge : Industrial & Scientific

www.amazon.com

You're going to need two (2) tubes of Mobil EP-1 grease for the bull gear area. Yes, two of them because it requires a tube and a half. This is a lighter weight/viscosity grease than the typical grease you would use in a grease gun. It's NLGI #1 not #2.

They recommend Lubriplate B-105 grease for the set screw hole marked "A" on the head (on the left side of the head). This lubricates where the mechanism slides up and down when shifting from low/hi range. I didn't buy this and if I remember correctly I just used Super Lube. To tell you the truth, I seldom drop into low range. I just spin the speed control pot for my VFD. I only drop to low when I need to do heavier work for extended time at a slower speed, which doesn't happen much for me. Using a VFD definitely has its' advantages.

Don't grease the gears that have oil galleys lubricating them.

How's your spindle feel? Hopefully your spindle bearings are in good shape because they are very expensive (like $300-$400 for a set I believe). Check the felt in the top of the quill. If it's dirty, replace it. This keeps the crap out of your spindle bearings. The oil just drips down onto this felt from the oil cup and you want this clean so no crap gets to those expensive spindle bearings. The oil just drips out of the bottom of the spindle, but that lets you know it's getting the oil it needs!

Ted

 

[diamond]

+1 on the book. That plus Barry's videos and the sage advice here on this site got me through my rebuild as a complete newbie.

You might think there's room for the full 2 tubes of the grease when packing it in around the bull gear. I thought so and did it. Why waste half a tube right? Resulted in having to pull my head back apart and dig out half a tube and clean up the mess it made.

 

[Ceej0103]

You are going to love that book! It answers all these questions and much more. The book recommends Super Lube for the head worm tilt wheel/gear. I bought a big tube of it because I use it for a lot of things and it's much cheaper this way. You can get smaller tubes if you like, but it's nice stuff to have on hand and I use it all the time for a variety of things.

Amazon.com : Super Lube 41150 Synthetic Grease (NLGI 2), 14.1 oz Cartridge : Industrial & Scientific

Amazon.com : Super Lube 41150 Synthetic Grease (NLGI 2), 14.1 oz Cartridge : Industrial & Scientific

www.amazon.com

You're going to need two (2) tubes of Mobil EP-1 grease for the bull gear area. Yes, two of them because it requires a tube and a half. This is a lighter weight/viscosity grease than the typical grease you would use in a grease gun. It's NLGI #1 not #2.

They recommend Lubriplate B-105 grease for the set screw hole marked "A" on the head (on the left side of the head). This lubricates where the mechanism slides up and down when shifting from low/hi range. I didn't buy this and if I remember correctly I just used Super Lube. To tell you the truth, I seldom drop into low range. I just spin the speed control pot for my VFD. I only drop to low when I need to do heavier work for extended time at a slower speed, which doesn't happen much for me. Using a VFD definitely has its' advantages.

Don't grease the gears that have oil galleys lubricating them.

How's your spindle feel? Hopefully your spindle bearings are in good shape because they are very expensive (like $300-$400 for a set I believe). Check the felt in the top of the quill. If it's dirty, replace it. This keeps the crap out of your spindle bearings. The oil just drips down onto this felt from the oil cup and you want this clean so no crap gets to those expensive spindle bearings. The oil just drips out of the bottom of the spindle, but that lets you know it's getting the oil it needs!

Ted

You're awesome, Ted. Thanks for your time in responding to my questions. I didn't realize, but the top-half rebuild kit actually came with the 2 tubes of Mobil EP-1 so I'm good there. Noted on not greasing gears and such. I've just been hitting them with a very lightweight machine oil and I slip them in to their various locations to make them slip in easy. I see Barry uses WD40 a lot when assembling various parts of the head so I doubt a little light oil will hurt anything. I ordered a lube kit from Blue Chip Machine Shop. They sell a kit that includes Mobil Velocite #10, Mobil DTE, Mobil Vactra #2, and a tube of Lubriplate. Should be all good in he lube department other than reviewing the literature on how frequently to lube various parts.

The spindle feels really good. Not gummy, gritty, or show any other signs that would lead me to believe the bearings are going. I pulled the felt and the first bearing looks nice and clean. There was no chips/debris or any other form of contamination. The felt looked dingy, but not totally nasty. I left it as is.

I have a lot of updates to post tonight. Got the quill and bull gear assemblies done. I haven't put all the grease in the bull gear housing yet as I'm waiting for a new hi lo detent plunger and plate, which come tomorrow. I wanted to be able to install those with the bull gear housing on the bench and without a bunch of gunk in it to ensure I'm meshing correctly when the hi lo lever position is changed.

Anyhow, update with pictures tonight.

 

[Ceej0103]

What a great surprise!! This stuff wasn’t supposed to come until tomorrow.

 

[Ceej0103]

I can't keep track of what day of the rebuild I'm at so I'll just discontinue the counting of days.

We'll start with aspects of the machine other than the head. So the last remaining things to really do there is to get the lube system re-installed and then set the table. Then I can install the remaining lead screw, dials, cranks, power feed, etc. Problem is the lube system. I got it cleaned out well and did some bench testing to make sure I was getting good flow through the new meters and then hooked up all my 5/32 tubing to those meters and tested good flow through those. I didn't replace the tubing...just soaked it and blew it out. Fast forward about 3 hours and I gave up on tubing. I was so frustrated. I carefully marked each tube as I removed it to correspond to it's location on the block. Great. I reattached each tube in that location and tried to run my lines. About half of them were anywhere close to reaching the correct hole in the saddle/yoke. I threw out the numbering system and just started plugging them in where I felt they should go. As you might remember if you did this type of rehab, it's really hard to just take one fitting off from the center of the block. You almost have to remove all of the fittings to the left or right of it to get a wrench on it. Complicating the issue, it's not just a matter of whether it's the intended tube for the intended hole. It matters where it plugs in to the block as to whether it will reach. After about 3 hours of trying different configurations, I said the hell with it. I ordered new 5/32 tube and 5/32 compression rings. I'm going to run new tubing that is cut to fit. Lesson learned here: don't be a cheapo and just buy tubing if you're doing this job. Spend the $20 and 1 hour of work and move on with your life. Tubing comes in Friday from Grainger. I went through Grainger because they had different colors. I went with blue to kind of standout from the machine. Should look cool.

On to the head. The quill housing took me 2 days to reassemble. Mainly because I was finishing parts as I installed them. I painted the housing black, but decided to just strip and somewhat polish the other parts. They all got a coat of clear before going back on the machine. Learned a ton about the quill just doing the assembly. I'm glad I dug in to the downfeed/upfeed system and understand it now. I foresee some tinkering there at the end of the rebuild as I feel it's going to need some adjustment. Primarily the clutch aspect of the system. It has the mod that Barry had on his video with a set screw and nut to press on the clutch, but it's actually drilled on the opposite side from where Barry showed in his video. Odd.

Bull gear and housing was next. I tore the two housing pieces apart and did a thorough job cleaning them, polishing, and then clear coating. While they set up, I broke down the small gear and put two new bearings on it. I did the same with the large bull gear and everything went well. I was a little freaked out by the bottom bearing of the large bull gear wanting to press back out against the wavy washer, but soon realized that it would get pushed in nicely with the slotted nut that holds that assembly together. I dropped those assemblies in to the housing and put it on the machine. I played a bit with the hi/lo lever, but didn't have the plunger/plate yet in the mail so couldnt finish it. Good thing I didnt, because I totally forgot to put the 3 springs under the bull gear. I pulled it off the machine this morning, put in the springs, and then realized I got that package I needed and was able to assemble the hi/lo lever. Pushing the large gear down to mesh with the small while trying to place the hi/lo shaft was challenging, so I used some clamps to pull it down. Low and behold, my new book recommended the same method. Great minds...

I realized quickly that the lever on the hi/lo selector was some other variation and that my detent was made to work with the variation that had a ball end on it. Mine has basically a blunt end with a 90 degree tooth at the end. I wasn't waiting longer, so I just hit the diamond grinding wheel with the end of the lever until I got it to move freely inside the detent. I'll put that part on order and replace with the proper part, to avoid rapid wear, when it comes in.

Last item for the day was grease packing. Got that done and replaced the cover to the large bull gear and the cover guide for the small gear. And in writing this I just realized I forgot to put the wavy spring washer under that cap. I'm going to go back out to the garage and do that right now before I forget.

 

[Ceej0103]

Last update before the LAST update. Today I got the rest of the belt housing stripped, polished, and clear coated. I pulled the mandrel from the vari-disc to reveal some well-seated bushings (I glued them up last night). To my surprise, the disc on the motor side had these green bushings that I later learned were turcite bushings and are an older style. Pulling them would have resulted in not being able to use the disc as the replacement black bushings are too small. I left those alone. They appeared to be in good shape anyway with a decent grip on the shaft still. I couldn't create any axial play in the bushings when installed on the motor shaft.

I replaced the chain on the variable speed dial and the dial itself. Once re-installed in to the belt housing, that went back on the machine followed by the tilt plate screws, followed by the top bearing cap. Everything slid together like butter. I have all of the housings just finger tight and will run the the machine a little to let it all settle before I torque them down.

I also got the motor and electrical housing stripped, cleaned, and painted. Paint should be dry by morning. So the last remaining items are the lube lines, table, lead screw, and reassembling/installing the motor. The lube lines from grainger were the wrong ID. I refused the package when it was dropped as to avoid return shipping. Once again, just order from H&W to avoid hassle. How many times must I learn this lesson? Called Debbi after placing the order and asked her to change the shipping to next day as I simply am too impatient to wait any longer to install the lube lines. Those should be here before 12noon Saturday. By that time I'll already have the motor mounted. By end of day tomorrow, the machine will be operational. I'll still need to replace the elevator shaft when that comes in (backorder) and sort out the VFD.

One more update tomorrow and I'll send some video of the machine cutting something.

 

[hwelecrepair]

Once again, just order from H&W to avoid hassle. How many times must I learn this lesson?

There are so many memes and gif's I could go with on this one. I left early yesterday, but Debbi was packing that up as I was leaving. It isnt often we do Saturday delivery.

Jon

 

[ttabbal]

There's a reason they are the first place I go for BP parts. They nearly always have it, reasonably priced, and ship fast. None of the stupid marking something shipped and waiting a week to give it to the carrier.