Anybody ever tried this ? Purchased a Jet 14" band saw couple of years
ago -- working great, expect for the dust collection. The 2" port (besides
not conviently attaching to any dust sucking machine in the shop) does not
work well. I noticed on the new machines that they now have a 4" port in
the cast iron base -- anybody ever replace their base ? I am going to price
this out tomorrow but am I nuts ? Other choice is to add my own port to the
door -- cheaper, I know.......

If I pull out the base do I need any fancy tools to extract the lower axel ?
I have a shop full of tools but nothing out of the ordinary -- like gear
pullers

I recently bought an older Jet bandsaw that needed new lower bearings.
Driving the old bearings out with a pneumatic impact hammer was
straightfoward, because I didn't care if I damaged them.

Installing the new bearings was a different story. Each bearing is a
double press fit onto the wheel shaft and into the lower casting, so
you need a way to press the outer and inner races simultaneously.
Because there are two bearings opposite each other, pressing one in
tends to force the other out. I tired all kinds of wierd routines with
clamps, levers, and lots of hammering, to no avail. It became evident
that the right tool for this job is a really big honking bearing press,
which I don't have. Finally, I took the whole lower casting to a
machine shop, and $10 and 1 day later, I was in business.

Oh BTW, my saw has a 4" dust port... in the lower door.