Cleaning the carraige bearings

[bergerud]

You may want to take the carriage off. If you keep rotating the two side bearings with the wrench the carriage will come free of the rails.

[Milanth]

We have the carriage off the rail now. We figured out if we loosen enough it will come off the rail. My husband removed the seal off the lower bearings. He said he does not think it could be cleaned sufficiently. He is having problems getting the seal off the top bearings because of the nut. He said the seal is trying to tear. The bearings are really clogged up. He is going to try to clean them and if he can't I will order new ones in the morning. I will get them in one day. I am close to Houston.

[Milanth]

Do you know now much the bearings are?

[bergerud]

I do not know how much they cost. Installing them is a bit of a procedure which will probably require drilling. The bearings you have are not bad, just dirty. Compressed air or solvent and some oil and you are up and running. (You may want to think about a DC system so this type of thing does not keep happening.)

[Milanth]

My husband said it would be okay on the to 2 bearings but he can't get the seal off the lower 2 without destroying the seal. Okay can you tell me what a DC system is?Is that they dust recovery system? I was going to put one on it after it went out of warranty. I just haven't taken the time to do one yet. Which one do you recommend? My husband said he didn't think these would even clean. And you are correct about having to drill the screws out of the old ones.

[bergerud]

You may not have to get the seal all the way off to clean out the bearings. I cannot remember now how I did it, but I did it without damage. How are the Z bearings?

There are a lot of posts on dust collection (DC) systems. Dust collection has its own sub-category on the forum. There has not been, in my opinion (in agreement with your husband), an ideal solution which you can buy. You can make your own system or you can buy the vacuum head part of the system. I believe the must successful one to date that you can buy is the Ringneckblues. You will also have to buy a 4 inch hose sized vacuum system to go with it. There is a new one now being sold which is made of clear acrylic - the jury is still out on that one. I made my own system which is quite a bit different than the ones in common use, and so, I am not an expert on them. Search the forum or start a thread asking the members for their opinions.

[gwizpro]

The bearings are $10.00 each plus shipping. I ordered all 4 on my A machine last week. Did the clean out routiine and re lubed, but they were very damaged and caused the truck to chatter. When I put them back on after re lubing them they did allow the truck assembly to ride freely, but after a while of carving the chatter started back up and you could see brown oozing from the bearings. Apparently they got rusted due to our high humidly and (lack of maintenance). So from now on, we will be periodically taking off the truck and doing maintenance on the bearings. I have been seeing more posts about this lately. Maybe the older machines are old enough now to start presenting this problem...

[Milanth]

The Z bearings are fine. I fully intend on putting a dc on it now. I have a 4" vacuum system that I use all over my shop. I have it with a large metal trash can at it's side. Most of the debris goes in the trash can instead of the bag. They are on wheels so I just roll them around to each machine when I need it. I have a long enough hose on it that it reaches most of my machines without even moving it.

[Milanth]

Thanks I will be ordering them first thing in the morning. I have an order they guy was suppose to pick up this coming Sunday but I will be short 2 plaques. My deadline is before April 8 so I should be able to get everything way before then. Thanks to everyone for all the help!