Anyone have any picture, instructions or anything on how the X3 spindle is removed.I need to remove mine to inspect and see what is making this awful noise. I removed and greased the other gears and they are great now, so it has to be in the spindle.

Hi Donald,

Here's a link to a pdf:
http://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/projects/prepguides/X3%20Mill%20Preparation%20Guide.pdf

Later,
Jack

P.S. More pages on their site with X3 stuff.
http://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/Catalogue/Machines-Accessories/Milling-Machines/Model-X3-Small-Mill
http://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/projects.aspx

Ok Great site.

Any know what bearings I need to buy to replace them so I can have them before I take my spindle appart?

My spindle was making a awful noise, but it turned out to be that the top part of the spindle shaft where you tighten the draw bar was rubbing the protective spindle cover that screws into the top of the motor cover. Grizzly sent a whole new motor cover since the holes were off on the original.

...and don't forget to check the little dowel that engages the slot in the R-8 arbor.

The cheap-a$$ drill chuck/arbor that came with my X-3 had a problem in the slot or the arbor and it was possible to put it in and tighten the drawbar without the dowel being line up in the slot. This forced the dowel out and it hit something on the inside of the head causing desperate sounding noises.

Fortunately I decided to pull out the arbor before tearing down the spindle. When the arbor didn't want to come out, it dawned on me what the problem was. Fortunately, no damage was done and the problem went away when I switched out the arbor/chuck.

Mine is not rubbing any where I can see. I have both top covers off exposing the gears and all, and it makes roaring noise like bad or dry bearings. Reason I was asking about what bearing # to use is so I can find some better ones, higher rpm as I have a belt conversion designed for it and I hope to get more than 2000rpm from it.

Hey Donald, as I've mentioned before, if you aren't experiencing runout or any ofter problems, the stock bearings are fine. Mine have been running in a production environment for the past 6 months. I have a max rpm of 7000 rpm and a constant use speed of 6000 rpm and other than the head getting hot, there has been nothing bad happen.

Now if you want to do it otherwise, please let us know how it goes and what bearings you pick, because sooner or later, the bearings will need to be replaced. Also, show the belt conversion.

I have not tore it apart to check yet, but it is the god awful noise it is making that has me thinking bearings, cause that is what it sounds like. If they are good I will run them for a while.

When I get belt conversion closer I will reveal, I would to make some cash from it to buy me a lathe :-)

Gotcha, Im sorry, I reread the initial post and now see the weird noise making part. My bad. To try and isolate remove the gears and use a power drill, chuck up on the drawbar, and use the drill to spin the spindle. That way you can isolate it from everything else.

Oh yeah, I know this is obvious, but make sure the drawbar is attached to something so it will spin the spindle.

:-) I already took al the gears from the head and greased them. They are alot quiter now, but the noise is still there, and I know it is the spindle or something about it. It didn't start doing this until I ran a 3 hour job at max rpm a few weeks ago. Head got pretty warm as it was running.

I hope to get some time to figure it out this week...

Hey Donald, did you ever take that spindle apart and find out what was causing the problems. I was hoping you replaced the bearings, which is something I'm going to be doing soon myself, and would like to order them before I take it apart, the same thought as yourself. Thx

I have not had a chance yet, I have upgraded my belt drive, to give me about 6k rpm and it works 300% better. I am sure if there is a bearing problem it will show up real soon with this rpm range.