It all started last week when I decided to order some 2MT collets for my lathe, so I didn't have to hold tooling in the chuck. The collets duly arrived and I made a drawbar to hold them firmly in place. Once the drawbar was made, I removed the chuck and inserted a collet, strange sez I, it shouldn't wobble like that........On close inspection, I found that the 2 morse taper socket had been bored parallel, how inconvenient, I mused....
The freshly made drawbar
Horror of horrors, the counterbored MT socket
A quick phonecall to Myfords in Mitholmroyd (where I bought the machine) produced a new spindle foc, which arrived the next day, no quibbling, just 'we will send a spindle straight away' can't beat that for service. So today I removed the old spindle, easier than I thought, I had looked at a thread elsewhere ( instructables I think) and the bloke who was doing it seemed to be making heavy weather of it so I was a tad aprehensive, he had to belt seven colours of ***** out of it to get the spindle out, using a big ammer and a lump of wood. I made a couple of drifts from aluminium to use instead of wood.
The drifts
So, first job, get rid of all the covers, so the doctor can see the patient, remove the banjo and changewheels and we are ready to go, the 25 tooth gear is removed next by undoing the little grubscrew and pulling the gear off. Next, unscrew the first locking collar, there is a grubscrew with a copper pellet (to protect thread on spindle) un do this and remove collar, next in line there is a spacer, remove that as well.......
Remove gear, collar and spacer....
Now we move inside the headstock, unscrew the grubscrew in the second locking collar, wind it out a good few turns so it will clear the flat on the spindle. Move along to the bullwheel (backgear) and undo the grubscrew, again, enough to clear flats. remove backgear cluster by un screwing the 5/16 whit nut on the end of the shaft and withdrawing it backwards. Now it is time ti attack with a hammer and knock the spindle out, as it turned out, half a dozen firm clouts and it was out, the grease cap on the front will pop off first.
Headstock components....
Ready to knock out the spindle....
All the parts were laid out on the bench in the order in which they were removed, ready to be thoroughly cleaned....
Final job of the day, remove the taper roller bearing from the chuck end of the old spindle, this needs to be done firmly but carefully, do not hit the bearing cage, only apply force to the solid inner part of the bearing or damage will occur. Ideally a press should be used, but I used a hammer and large pin punch, tapping opposite sides until it was free....
removing the taper roller bearing....
That's it for today, all the parts are soaking in degreaser, ready for re assembly tomorrow.