Unimat SL Headstock Overhaul

[@VintageGearMan]

I just changed my bearings and races. I was lucky enough to find new old stock German made SKF E13 bearings. The new bearings made a huge difference in head stock noise level. I was worried to death about getting the chuck side bearing off the shaft. I did not want to pry between the bearing and the shaft for fear of some kind of shaft damage. With all this being said I ended up carefully banging the head stock shaft on a piece of wood by hand and low and behold the chuck side bearing started moving and then came loose from the shaft. I was so relieved. Most likely my old bearings were the originals. Thank God these bearings were not a super tight pressed on scenario. They do fit snug on the shaft but fairly easy to remove. The Germans got this fit dead on with changing them out in mind down the road. Smart! Getting the chuck side race out, I used a socket extension and a socket that had more of a flatter edge on it. I angled it inside the head stock housing cylinder so I could get a good contact point with the bearing race and carefully lightly tapped the race out. ( important go slow and "evenly" tap the race out ) This was a bit nerve racking because there is very little surface edge of the bearing race for the socket to grab on to internally. None the less it worked and no damage. I used a brass hammer to carefully install the new race into the head stock housing cylinder. I really hope this has helped someone out installing new bearings in the SL DB200 head stock if you are lucky enough to find them as I did. Now this is a big gray area on grease. I used Valvoline high temperature wheel bearing grease synthetic on the new bearings and races. I hope this will be ok. There never seems to be a clear answer on what grease to use on these head stock bearings. SKF does make SKF bearing grease but it is very expensive and they seem to have several different versions of this grease which makes things even more confusing. Anyone reading this please chime in about the Valvoline high temperature ( synthetic) wheel bearing grease and as to whether that is a safe grease to use or not for this application. Thanks on the video Bill.

[@BillsWorkbench]

I had the same results as you trying to find the right grease. Most of the stuff I found speced EP1 grease. I settled on this: amzn.to/3Jum2HC Only time will tell if it's good or bad.

[@TheKnacklersWorkshop]

Hello Bill, All looks good to me... well done... Take care. Paul,,

[@BillsWorkbench]

Thanks Paul. 👍

[@pixelpatter01]

Thanks Bill. I have one of these lathes with a noisy headstock bearing and I've been looking for someone to post a video about it.

[@BillsWorkbench]

Glad it helped. Let me know if you get that noise takes care of.

[@machinist_matt]

Hi Bill. I think everything went back together correctly. Looks nice and smooth now! 👍

[@BillsWorkbench]

Thank you. It’s coming along working in the motor this weekend.

[@machinistmikethetinkerer4827]

Subbed. Yeah looks good. I switched out the little 90w motor with a 110w brushless perm. magnet motor with a variable speed switch. You get a little more speed and power. You got any questions shoot me and email. It's on my descriptions page. I have all sorts of info on our SL's. Have fun.

[@BillsWorkbench]

Motor switch out is on my list. Just want to get it running first so I know how much better each improvement will be.