Today I can finally say I finished rebuilding a vacume pump for the milking system at my parents farm. A bearing went out in it probably 8-9 years ago and I got a good start on it, but then it sat in peices for 4 job changes and another 8 years. The new bearings I bought back then had a click so I had to replace them again, and I wasn't happy with the job I did welding up and turning down the bearing journal back then so I did that over too.
I welded up the journals yesterday after work and turned them back down today, then polished the rotor with emery cloth and cleaned out the slots for the vanes with a file. I blanchard ground the side plates to clean them up (one side had pretty big grooves in it from when the bearing went) and put it back together with plenty of air tool oil for assembly lube. Once I was done I spun it in the lathe at around 1000 RPM's for a couple minutes and dumped more oil in while it was running. I gotta say it sucked pretty hard.
I also had the body honed out about 2 months ago before my bathroom project took over my life. The bore was scorched a little bit and was glazed pretty bad. Only cost me about $25 to have it done. All told, I think I've got about $40 stuck into the pump and it should be ready to go if/when the current $1500 pump goes down. Last time it was on Christmas eve....
All I gotta find is a new QD bushing to install the belt pulley. Not sure what happened to the old one, and the newer pump has a bigger shaft so it won't work on this one.
Donovan from Wisconsin
I welded up the journals yesterday after work and turned them back down today, then polished the rotor with emery cloth and cleaned out the slots for the vanes with a file. I blanchard ground the side plates to clean them up (one side had pretty big grooves in it from when the bearing went) and put it back together with plenty of air tool oil for assembly lube. Once I was done I spun it in the lathe at around 1000 RPM's for a couple minutes and dumped more oil in while it was running. I gotta say it sucked pretty hard.
I also had the body honed out about 2 months ago before my bathroom project took over my life. The bore was scorched a little bit and was glazed pretty bad. Only cost me about $25 to have it done. All told, I think I've got about $40 stuck into the pump and it should be ready to go if/when the current $1500 pump goes down. Last time it was on Christmas eve....
All I gotta find is a new QD bushing to install the belt pulley. Not sure what happened to the old one, and the newer pump has a bigger shaft so it won't work on this one.
Donovan from Wisconsin