My Gilmer belt replacement experience

[deec]

I have a 3 pd hammer to tap with and use whatever force is required to remove the drive sleeve shaft.

I like to see sincere appreciation for a good hammer.


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[robinson46176]

Thanks Bill. Good to know I'm not the only guy in the world that can't take out a drive assembly by lightly tapping! I'll be replacing some bearings on my machine probably sometime soon as they are feeling a little gritty. Control sheave bearing are good though for some reason. Others are a little sticky and noisy. Are those bearings you mention stock parts or do we get them somewhere other than SS?

Hi Deec:
Below is a repost of a post of mine from 2009. I know some will always disagree with me but I still stand by every word of it.
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I have been relubing sealed ball bearing assemblies both for myself and professionally since around 1972. Thousands and thousands of them. Often 50 to 100 a week. We operated a very busy vac shop for over 20 years as part of our businesses until we retired. Many vac bearings are around the size of the SS quill bearings and reach quite high RPM's (router speeds). They run in dirty environments, often for long periods at a time in commercial applications. We had special equipment for pressure lubing many of them and simple procedures for others like very small ones or odd sizes in the smallish ones. All of the larger ones will fit in a pressure lube unit. I also relubed hundreds of sealed ball bearings used in farm equipment and before anyone says farm equipment bearings are not the same, some are not but some are super critical.
Any relube must be done properly and relubing does NOT tighten up a worn bearing. It might quiet it down but it is still worn.
For the average woodworker (or handyman) the simplest procedure is using heat. Buy a can of electric motor grease. Then you clean the bearing outside until it is spotless. Place it on a common light bulb until it is pretty much too hot to hold for any time then poke it down in the grease and be sure it is covered completely. As the hot bearing cools it will suck the heat softened grease around the bearing in past the seals and you are done. It should spin well by hand (not freely though) and should turn smoothly.
My wife actually got quite good at most of them that didn't need opening up. I have opened up many of them by removing the side shields and cleaning the inside, lubing them and reinstalling the seals. It isn't all that hard on most but can be really tedious in little tiny bearings. It generally isn't something that most without experience will want to try. I do NOT recommend that most people use a torch to heat the bearing as the flame can burn the seals. You can however heat a heavy metal plate with the torch and lay the bearing on the hot steel plate to warm it.
Again, a worn bearing is still a worn bearing and I wouldn't waste my time putting a worn relubed bearing in a Shopsmith quill. If however the bearings are just dry it will cure them as well as a new bearing. It can also maybe keep you working until you can buy new bearings if you are in a production situation. Maybe you have dry bearings on other equipment.
I currently am saving (I save a lot of stuff) any Shopsmith drive sleeve bearings I change out because they will fit the quill spindles on my King Kutter 5' finish mower and it does not care if they are a little loose.
Drive sleeve bearings are a little more forgiving of a minor amount of wear than quill bearings as long as they have plenty of lube in them.
I assume that most guys making a full restoration are just going to order a full set of new bearings and install them and that is fine but don't discard the old ones if not badly worn. Clean them, lube them, put them in a clean bag and label them well. Someday you might be very glad to have one when a bearing comes apart right in the middle of something. Most bearings fail on the weekends you know...
BTW, my initial training on relubing bearings was by the Hoover Company.


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[deec]

That is an interesting bit of knowledge Robinson46176. The only similar experience in my life and times was when I was squeezing the last bit of use out of a Makita power hand planer. The cutter head bearings gummed up so badly that the motor would stall out. I discovered that if I shot some WD40 on them and let it sit for a few minutes that I could carry for for a bit. I'm on my third Makita 1902 now though as I'm pretty hard on them and sometimes don't have enough patients to fiddle with them in the heat of the moment. Much easier just to go down to Home Depot and get a new one for $130 when deadlines are looming.

Place it on a common light bulb until it is pretty much too hot to hold for any time then poke it down in the grease and be sure it is covered completely. As the hot bearing cools it will suck the heat softened grease around the bearing in past the seals and you are done. It should spin well by hand (not freely though) and should turn smoothly....... I do NOT recommend that most people use a torch to heat the bearing as the flame can burn the seals. You can however heat a heavy metal plate with the torch and lay the bearing on the hot steel plate to warm it.

I have a variable temperature Milwaukee heat gun that will work perfectly for heating those bearings. We use this tool in electronics primarily for shrinking heat shrink tubing and testing for thermally intermittent failure modes. I'm pleased to find out that I might use it for something else.

[Culprit]

Excellent technique, Robinson.

A variation on the theme is used for lubing vintage motorcycle chains - chains that are dry but not worn out. Clean the chain thourougly then place the chain in your wife's electric skillet (this is the most dangerous step of the process, by the way) and cover with grease. Heat the thing up till the grease flows, then let cool.