Well, I finally took it off yesterday. It was yesterday's project. The
pump was mounted to a plate. No big deal except the plate was under the
pulley. The plate was to big to mount in the vises I have on my mill table
(I do have larger vises) and
the pump hung down to low from the plate anyway.
I mounted up two pieces of 1/2 x 6" aluminum flat bar in the two vises on
the table. Then I placed the pump hanging down between them with the plate
it was mounted to resting on the aluminum flat bar.
Now here is where it started to get tricky. I slid the flat bar up against
the pump as firmly as possible, and tightene
d the vises on it. This limited the pumps ability to spin. Then using 2
sets of welding clamps I clamped the pump mounting plate to the aluminum
flat bar such that the spokes of the pulley rested up snug against them. A
third one acted as a stop against a third spoke. Then I programmed a simple
spiral drill routine (interpolated spiral milling) down to a depth of 3/4".
With a slow speed and a slow feed on conventional clockwise spiral milling I
began removing the weld. The feed and amount of movement of the pump pulley
was limited, but the feed and cut kept pushed it up against the welding
clamp stops as well. At about 0.6" deep I heard a snap and stopped the cut.
When I retracted the mill and brushed the chips and oil out of the pocket I
was was surprised to find that the mill was still in useable (for hack jobs)
if not perfect condition, and the snap was probably one of the bits of pins
and flotsam that had been wedge in the hole to fill the gap between the
pulley bore and the much smaller spline shaft coupler that was on the shaft.
I had completely cut off the weld and was able to pull the pulley off with a
puller and a wrench. Then there was the matter of the spline shaft coupler
that was on the pump shaft. It seemed to have one or two tiny bits of weld
melt on the back end, but I wasn't sure it was actually welded to the shaft.
I pressed it off with the hydraulic press and had a very dirty, but pristine
spline shaft remaining on the pump. As near as I can tell no weld actually
managed to penetrate the shaft at the top or the bottom. It seems that just
friction and crud were holding the spline coupler on the shaft. If it
wasn't for that huge gob of weld in the way I might have been able to just
pull the whole nasty mess with a puller.
For those of you with Facebook: Video and images:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/115502482321376/ Should still be near the
top. Just look for the video showing three sets of welding clamp handles
sticking towards you.
"Bob La Londe" wrote in message news
I was just tearing down an old log splitter (I got it for $60) to use the
mechanic bits for a hydraulic press. The cylinder may be worth what I paid
for the whole thing. It may not. LOL. The control valve was leaking, but
when I started tearing it apart I found it was not leaking. There was a
cracked fitting. Ok. That's easy enough. Its not even cracked at the
valve. it was cracked (and broke off during disassembly) at the next fitting
a wrench may just take it out when I get to it. I spent a good half hour
cutting the cylinder out with water running on one side while I cut the
metal straps and braces on the other side with the torch. Hopefully I
didn't cook any seals.
Anyway, I got to the pump and it was one of the easiest components to
remove. I unscrewed the belt tension adjusting screw, and it slid right
out. Nice... until I started scraping the gunk and dirt off to finds that
they had used a steel drive pulley, and welded it directly to the shaft of
the pump. Sigh. Looks like its going to be the hardest part to repurpose.
The only thing I can think of is to find a way to clamp up the pulley on the
mill, and spiral mill the hub out hoping I have enough shaft left to be
useful when it finally comes free.
I'd just reuse the pulley, but its got a huge chunk out of one side. It
would eat belts.
The old Briggs gas motor was pretty rough. That's ok. I plan to use a
continuous duty electric motor on it anyway.