Countershaft Repair and Improvement
(Added 07/04/2003)

    The 2 step and 4 step pulleys run directly against the housing on the newer Atlases with no intermediate wear surface or bearing. The lathe had a small amount of free space between the pulleys and the housing.  This caused some banging, and the end of the 4 step pulley was peened over a little.  Also neither pulley had been correctly secured, and they had spun on the shaft (apparently more than a few times), and the bores were quite messed up.  To fix this I bored both out on my old lathe and installed, a flanged (to run against the countershaft housing), and sleeve (to fill out the rest of the bore) sintered bronze bearing to restore the pulleys.  The end of the 2 step pulley with the sleeve bearing showing is seen in Figure 1.


Figure 1

   The original countershaft was also ruined, so I replaced it with a length of 3/4" CRS.  The original slot in the 4 step pulley for the Woodruf key was removed in the reboring, so I choose to use just a slot cut in the shaft for the pulley setscrew to sit in.  I cut the slot in the drill press using an endmill and a X-Y vise.  To insure that the pulleys would not shift away from the countershaft housing , and to aid adjusting the bearing clearance I threaded the 4 step pulley end of the shaft, for a 3/4" NC nut. (Figure 2).  Loc-Tite was used to secure the nut. in place)


Figure 2

    When I went to install the headstock belt guards, the new threaded end interfered with one of them.  Using the brute force approach I ran the lathe and used a hacksaw to shorten the shaft and nut.

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