Sorry, this is a bit longish?
My Bridgy has a rattly head. Its not a Vari-speed, just the common or garden variety J-head with a 2-speeder on it.
I finally got some time to myself this afternoon, and wired up the phase converter so I could start it up and see what I had bought. I'd already noticed a little wear in the slides but nothing to really worry about, but obviously couldn't check much else without power on.
The DRO worked fine straight away, so that was a plus as I was expecting the worst. Set the drive up in low range, flicked everything on to start up the motor, switched to the first speed and bingo, I had a rotating spindle. Power downfeed worked as well so that's another plus. There was a wee bit of a rattle, so switched motor off, changed the belt up two steps and switched on again, still in low range/backgear. Starts up fine again, but got even more of a rattle. Changed into high range, switched on, the motor ramped up to speed rather slowly and then the head produced an almighty clatter (well maybe not almighty, but you know what I mean?).
Switched off again, let the motor coast to a stop, switched the motor to high speed and pushed the start button. Well the converter didn't like this at all, only showing about 230V on the meter (previously the voltmeter was steady at 415V) and not getting the motor anywhere near speed. Switched off, set the boost switch on the converter from 2 all the way up to 8, and tried again. Same thing happened, 230V on the meter, spindle running dead slow, then the overload on the contactor tripped out and knocked the motor off. I did notice that the 'boost' light on the converter didn't come on at any time so I may have a problem here as well.
Feeling ambitious I thought I'd strip the top of the head down to look for anything obvious. Took off the motor, then the belt housing, then the backgear/clutch housing. Took off the sensitive feed handle and clock spring and was about to drop the spindle but for some reason decided not to. I couldn't detect any play in the spindle bearings from pulling the splined drive shaft in all directions, and couldn't hear or feel any noise or harshness so left this bit well alone.
The motor pulley appeared OK too, again no obvious bearing problems. The driven (spindle) pulley made a little noise when being spun by hand, but nothing remotely like I'd heard earlier. The backgear housing was the same, but I couldn't find my puller to remove the timing pulley (my little garage is fast approaching the minimal floor space ethos as promoted by John S ) so I didn't get this apart any further. However, I have a suspicion that the rattle is originating here.
Anyway, I cleaned it up a bit and put it all back together and started the motor up again. I must have done something as the rattle in low speed backgear is now almost gone, but unfortunately is still bad in higher backgeared/low range speed and unacceptable in all high range speeds (still on 1st motor speed setting). I noticed that if I put some tension into the drive by holding the spindle nose with a rag whilst it is spinning the rattle disappears completely. It definitely seems to be coming from the backgear/clutch area.
So, anyone have an idea what this could be, and what I should be looking for or doing to try and fix it?
And secondly, is the rather slow ramp up on the static phase converter(3KW) normal, or is the lack of a 'boost' light indicating that this is faulty too?
Thanks
Peter