The bearings are going bad in my Taig spindle and I want to either send it in for warranty repair, or replace them with some better bearings myself. Now I could just send the whole spindle assembly into Taig and have them take care of it, but I don't know what time frame I'd get it back in. Luckily I have a friend that is letting me borrow his old spindle, but it doesn't have a pulley on it. If I can just remove the pulley from my spindle, I could send the spindle off and not be out of a mill for who knows how long.

I've been working at it for a few weeks, but cannot for the life of me remove the pulley from the spindle. Yes, the setscrew is removed. Is it just mashed on there? Anyone have any suggestions for removing it?

try a propan trouch it is a lite press fit I would guess

heatgun would work best , if you heat it too much with the torch you could cause warpage , a trick ive always used for installing bearings is to put the bearings in the deep frier to expand them , they will slide right on for you

Depends on the temp of the heat gun ( I have one that will kick out 1000 deg.)a propane torch can do the same thing but do not use map gas or an acetylene torch as they do heat to a much hire temp. just us the heat that you need at the first sign of discoloration stop you could get a 600-700 deg heat stick if you feel you need to any welding supply house will have them in stock

Make or buy a hub puller.

You can make a simple one.

Drill and tap two holes in the pulley, either side of the spindle hole. Drill two holes in a piece of flat bar stock to match the tapped holes in the pulley. Then drill and tap a hole on the bar stock to match the spindle location. Attach the bar stock to the pulley using a couple of bolts screwed into the tapped holes in the pulley. Then screw a bolt into the tapped hole in the bar stock and keep going until you have pulled the pulley of the spindle.

Regards
Phil

The bearings are going bad in my Taig spindle and I want to either send it in for warranty repair, or replace them with some better bearings myself. Now I could just send the whole spindle assembly into Taig and have them take care of it, but I don't know what time frame I'd get it back in. Luckily I have a friend that is letting me borrow his old spindle, but it doesn't have a pulley on it. If I can just remove the pulley from my spindle, I could send the spindle off and not be out of a mill for who knows how long.

I've been working at it for a few weeks, but cannot for the life of me remove the pulley from the spindle. Yes, the setscrew is removed. Is it just mashed on there? Anyone have any suggestions for removing it?

ever heard of a pulley extractor ??

shouldnt cost more then 20bucks at any toolshop orif you've ever seen one you should be able too make one youself within 30min.

even with a puller the pully most likely will have a light press fit so a little heat will make it come of with less force from puller than witkout heat

I've used the propane torch trick - very carefully...
I don't know how they get those on to tightly, but in the future, I'll try a pully extractor...

Mark

for replacing back on trick I did on pullies in the pasted use a socket that is lager than shaft tap with rubber hammer use grease on the shaft make sure the are no burrs on shaft and start slow trying to keep straight

The instructions that come with new Taig pulleys, say not to use any kind of hammer to put them on. You can just put the pulley in a bowl full of boiling water for about 5-10 minutes. It should just drop right onto the spindle after that, at least it did for me.

A few hints on the procedure:

1) Put a sharpie mark on the top of spindle shaft that aligns with the flat spot on the shaft and one on the top and bottom of the pulley that aligns with the set screw. That way while your juggling the hot pulley you can line the the two marks up much easier than trying to find the set screw on the pulley and the flat spot on the spindle.
2) Sit the spindle on a tube or cup, if it's off the mill, that's taller than the bottom end of the spindle. That way the spindle is nice and stable when you drop the pulley on.

Also while you've got the pulley off, you can drill and tap the top so you can install the magnetic spindle depth stop (http://www.cartertools.com/erss.html). This should be done on a lathe for good alignment. Don't know if it works with the regular Taig collets, but it's an excellent mod for the ER16 spindle.

Thanks guys,

I think I'm going to make a pulley extractor and use that method. I might heat it up a little bit as well to make things slide a bit easier. Nothing like making parts on the mill FOR your mill. :)

Came to this a bit late...
Chances are there is a burr on the spindle, as Taig only recently started adding a flat on the pulley end. If so then you will have to use a puller. Heat with a heat gun is better than a propane torch.
If there isn't a flat, add one before you reinstall the pulley!

Thanks guys,

I think I'm going to make a pulley extractor and use that method. I might heat it up a little bit as well to make things slide a bit easier. Nothing like making parts on the mill FOR your mill. :)

would they not have added retaining compound to add to the hold of the press fit ?

would they not have added retaining compound to add to the hold of the press fit ?

If you mean the pulley, no. The fit is essentially a shrink fit - once the pulley is warm it expands slightly and once it cools it holds pretty well, aided by the setscrew.