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Need advice for Bridgeport M head VFD

Thanks for your replies to my threads Jim.

I trammed the head and squared the vice. I made a simple tramming bar with a dial indicator on the end which basically spans my entire table length. I got the head tram pretty close.

There is a guy on Facebook who has a couple of pages dedicated to Bridgeport Mills. He recommends Mobil Vactra #6. I bought a gallon but now think it’s too thin. I’ll go pick up a quart of 0W20 synthetic like you recommended. I have some 5W30 synthetic at home. Do you think this will work?

I’ll ask a couple of guys on the steam club their opinion on the head noise. I don’t know if it is a worn spline or bad bearings, ??? My spindle runout is 0004-.0005” and my collets are about.0005-.0008” when I use a pin gage in the collet. I’ll try the synthetic oil you recommended.
 
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No matter what lube you use, key is to be sure it's dripping out the bottom when the oil cup is active. The oil cup feeds oil first into the two top pulley bearings, then it drips down into the quill (be sure the sheet metal shield is in place as it keeps the oil clean and directs it into the upper bore of the quill) and then the oil hits the two top bearings (the ones that don't really count) and then FINALLY it gets to the two lower spindle bearings which are the ones that do the real work. If the oil is not dripping out the bottome somebody may have replaced one of the upper bearings wiht a sealed unit, in which case the important bearings will always be running dry.

The M heads were originally set up with "SAE 205" bearings which are really just specially ground inexpensive radial bearings. You could probably put almost any lube in there as long as the wick fed it correctly, and have the machine run fine.
 
Hi Jim,

I followed up on your suggestion that the M Head noise coming from the spline shaft. I played with the quill position at different speeds. There is definitely a correlation between noise and quill position. When the quill is fully extended, the head is pretty quiet. I think the majority of the noise is coming from the spline shaft.

I do have oil coming from the spindle area. I have the oil dripping on a paper towel and it looks clean.

I think I will make some T nuts for my rotary table. I think that would be a good first project for the mill.
 
I learned something useful from another forum today. I started using 30W (ISO 100) non detergent oil on the spline and it quietened the head noise considerably.

i was using 10W30 before using straight 30W.

Really makes me happy.
 
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