tilting an IH mill

[cyclestart]

On these z45 mills is spindle lubrication in horizontal orientation equal to lubrication when it's vertical ?
First time trying this, with my luck all the seals will leak

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[arizonavideo]

The spindle is grease and will not leak but the gear case is oil and has a seal between the top of the spindle and the gear case. Often the oil seal will leak and let the oil splash on the grease washing out the grease and in the long long run letting the oil level get low and then the spindle bearings will be dry.

You can tilt the head and mill but if you see oil dripping out of the spindle later on you will want to drop out the quill cartage and add some fresh grease to the spindle.

If you have never added fresh grease you should do that anyhow. For the lower bearing you can just lower the quill and add it in the slot in the quill but the top bearing must be accesses by dropping the quill.

The quill feed to to be removed by removing the quill spring which is a bit dangerous. The quill is retained by TWO set screws on the left side of the head.

[cyclestart]

Thanks for the heads up .... and it probably is time to see if there's real grease in those bearings.

[SuzukiChopper]

Are you tilting the motor left or right? If you're going left horizontal, watch out for the fill screw on the top. I don't know about yours but mine is cross drilled in the head and drilled in the middle to the cross drill for venting. Guaranteed oil will come out of there if you're going 90*.

[cyclestart]

I don't know about yours but mine is cross drilled in the head and drilled in the middle to the cross drill for venting.

Same here. I'll have to temporarily plug the vent somehow.
btw there's another vertical screw left of the filler near the power switch. It's only finger tight, anyone know it's purpose? The machine manual is only good for a laugh.

[SuzukiChopper]

I've been curious about that other screw too. Kind of scared to take it out lol

[vertcnc]

If I remember right there is a screw that is used to separate the cover from the head. Kind of like a jack screw.

[SuzukiChopper]

ahh! makes sense!

[vertcnc]

The cover is installed on alignment pins which makes it a pretty tight fit. These just separates the cover some to then you can get a prying tool around the edges of the cover.

[cyclestart]

Mystery solved and a useful bit of info, thanks vertcnc