Quill and Spindle Removal: Craftsman King-Seeley 103.23141 Drill Press Restoration, Pt. 12

Believe it or not, the end is in sight. Once it's all disassembled, I need to install the quill bearings, clean and lubricate everything and put it back together. So hang in there!


The actual breakdown of the drill press head is not difficult. Oh, there is some difficulty, but I haven't gotten there just yet!

First we remove the feed lock knob. It's held on by a set screw. I slipped most of these parts back on to the head after they were loosened so as to not lose them.

The three handles/rods just unscrew from the center hub. Two of them came right off, while one was hard to turn and needed a shot of PB Blaster to free it up.

You can see I'll need to polish these up before reassembly.

This retaining bolt fits into a slot in the pinion, keeping it in place. We need to remove it.

You can see the pinion in this picture. This is the underside of the head.

And we also need to remove the bottom nut which holds the depth stop assembly in place.

And finally the nut and bolt on the collar supporting the stop assembly and attaching it to the quill.

Note that screw I just loosened - I have it backed out just enough to clear the pinion, but still held on the head so I won't misplace it.

The entire depth stop/collar now comes right off.

More cleaning in my future I see.

And the pinion gear/shaft will now slide right out.

Note the old grease that will need to be cleaned off. I'll use modern synthetic wheel bearing grease to relubricate it.

Also note the feed return spring inside the shaft. This is a better, more durable design than the external 'clock spring' type returns you see on cheaper import drill presses. I had to replace the spring on my Delta Shopmaster 10 inch press recently; those springs don't have a long life.

And with the pinion removed, we can slide the quill right out of the head. The quill not only holds the spindle shaft which drives the chuck, it also is the rack gear that the pinion engages with to feed a bit up and down.

The drill press head is cast iron and is pretty heavy - I'd guess about 30 pounds. I kept struggling with it as I had to flip it over and back to access various pieces as I took them off.

TMD had written a comment on a previous post in this series which I recalled when I was battling with the press on the workbench.  I realized while I didn't have TMD to help, I did have a BISON! I put him to work lugging around heavy bits. Here he is showing the newly-removed quill assembly.

With the quill removed, we can get at the top pulley and its bearings. Note that the shaft is splined - the quill shaft slides into it. The press head is upside down at this point - we're looking down at the bottom of the pulley shaft.

There's a retaining clip on the shaft which is holding it in place. Here's where I did a bit of unnecessary work - and I share it so you can avoid doing what I did.

Looking at the exploded diagram in the drill press manual, it appeared that I'd have to drive the pulley shaft out before removing the bearings. Wrong. But I didn't know that when I took this apart.

I figured I'd need to get the clip off, so I reached for my Channel Lock clip ring pliers. I put the curved tips in them to better access the clip in the press.

It took a bit of careful maneuvering and some special technical language, but I got the clip off fairly easily.

Here it is. I was pretty pleased at this point.

I took a piece of scrap 1x3 and set it up to use as a drift.

Then we gently whap the wood drift to drive the shaft out.

Note the bison has headed for higher, safer ground to avoid being hit by the hammer.

A couple of firm but gentle ("powerful like a gorilla but soft and yielding like a nerf ball" comes to mind...) taps and the pulley and its shaft easily come out.

So what's the problem?

Hold that thought.

Here are the bearings. There is one at the top and one at the bottom of the hollow cast sleeve the bearings ride in.

They're separated by a steel sleeve between them which has tilted to the side. You can see it in this shot.

The "problem" is that the whole assembly - bearings, shaft, pulley - will come out as a complete assembly. You don't have to hassle with the retaining clip until the whole thing is out of the press.

What I did in removing the shaft first isn't a mistake per se, but I didn't need to do it. The bearings are mounted in such a way that it's all one unit and can easily be driven out of the press all together. It sure would make the clip a lot easier to get to with the bearings/pulley out of the unit.

Live and learn. As I say, it just wasn't clear from the diagram that it could be taken apart that way. I will reassemble it as one piece and then drive it back in when I put it back together.

Here are the bearings and that sleeve removed from the press. They tapped out quite easily using a length of PVC pipe as a drift.

This is what the bearings look like seated on the upper spindle shaft. You can see how just driving it out would remove it in one shot.

As I say, I'll assemble it like this with the new bearings when it goes back together.

So all of this went pretty well, aside from me making extra work for myself. I alluded to an issue. Ha.

We'll see that next time when the quill assembly gets torn down to change its bearings.

The complete restoration saga

Part 1 - Beginning

Part 2 - Electrolysis to Remove Rust

Part 3 - Grinding to Remove Rust

Part 4 - Leveling Base Table

Part 5 - Recreating Model Number Label

Part 6 - Refinishing Base

Part 7 - Removing Motor

Part 8 - Motor Disassembly

Part 9 - Motor Bearing Replacement

Part 10 - Start Capacitor and Motor Reassembly

Part 11 - Removing Threaded Jacobs Chuck

Part 12 - Spindle Removal

Part 13 - Quill Disassembly

Part 14 - New Quill and Spindle Bearings

Part 15 - Engine Turned Aluminum Trim Proof of Concept

Part 16 - Engine Turned Aluminum Trim

Part 17 - Cleaning and Polishing Hardware

Part 18 - Jacobs 633C Drill Chuck Restoration

Part 19 - Cleaning and Polishing Column

Part 20 - Reassembly Begins

Part 21 - Restoration Completed