I finally got the column base and column separated. It was a lot of work. I shot Kroil down the key and around the rim for 4-5 days. Finally on the fifth day after repeated bouncing the column bottom on a heavy rubber mat on top of a 3/4" piece of plywood, it finally freed up and dropped to the ground. I thought I was good to go, but an hour later after a lot of pounding with a rubber mallet, the column finally came all the way out of the base.
That column needs some serious Scotch-Brite attention.
The column base is very heavy, as are most of the big parts on the GE. I took it outside to apply some Citri-Strip to it as there are three layers of paint, the original blue grey, a dark gray and then the ugly brown it was when I got it (Sorry Bruno I hope when you got it, it was already brown). The Citri-Strip only took off the brown layer so I had to do it again. Here is what it looked like after two coats of Citri-Strip and a lot of scraping. (You can see its original blue/grey after scraping off the Citri-Strip)
I decided that instead of media blasting at this point, I would use the flap wheel disk on my angle grinder as the original paint is REALLY hardened on there. Smart choice, 20 minutes later it looked like this.
Another 30 minutes in the blast cabinet and I was ready for the primer. It was hard to get the nooks and crannies and the curved areas with the flap wheel so media blasting took care of those spots. Now its primed and ready for its first coat of paint tomorrow.
I was working on the arm the same way, but man that original paint is tough. I am going to use the flap wheel on that as well. (Oh did I mention, the Long Arm doesn't fit in my blast cabinet. The good news is its only a few inches short, so my standard GE's arm will fit) The arm will take quite a bit longer than the column base I'm sure. Oh, and did i mention I could not get even ONE drive screw out on the badges or the pointers. I'm going to have to grind them flat, center punch them and drill them out slightly larger and use a larger drive screw to reset them. That also means slightly enlarging the holes in the badges and pointers. Ugh, more work.
Here is the arm after 4 coatings of Citri-Strip were applied and removed.
Since it was dark out, I quit working on the arm and decided to put the roller head carriage and yoke together. My dog screw was compromised as the sides of the slot were damaged. Fortunately, I was able to source a new one from Bradley Tools. (The one on the right, $17, not cheap but...)
All new roller head bearings were installed. I just don't see why, once you've gotten a piece apart you wouldn't replace bearings. The ones installed were the originals, they've done their work the past 70 years, time for a rest. The roller head bearings are MRC 5203, they are still available today as are other makes of 5203. I used the MRC 5203's here. Of course, I couldn't find my small bearing puller to press the bearings on the shafts, so I had to adapt. The tools I used are below. I seated the bearing as best as I could by hand onto the bearing shaft, put the thick felt washer over the shaft end and onto the bearing races (Actually, its a furniture leg pad with a hole drilled in it) and tapped the bearing on with the pipe. This works well, just don't bang to hard. Heating the bearing makes it go on very smoothly.
Once the bearings were installed, I put the roller head on the yoke and attached the clamp. It all got tightened up with the new dog screw. Unfortunately, I could not put the lever and locking clamp on as the hardware was missing. It better be in Florida where I cleaned it! ( I have a picture of the cleaned parts). Good thing I'm going back there tomorrow, I'm going to be in trouble if I can't find them, they probably aren't that easy to find. Here is the yoke/carriage assembly all test fit together. Everything works smoothly. I'll leave it together for now until I return with the missing parts!
I didn't like how the motor came out (paintwise), so I had to strip it, prime it again and repaint it. It looks better now. This has delayed my getting Part 4A of this blog completed. Now that the motor is ready, I will hook it up to the overhauled magnetic starter and hopefully it will work as it should. That will have to wait until I return.
The next big project will be taking the table and base apart, stripping all those parts, cleaning or replacing the hardware and priming and painting all the pieces. I need to get that done as I can't start putting this beast back together until the table and base have been completely restored and re-assembled. That will encompass most of Part 8.
Part 8 and Part 4A should be up in the next week or so when I return.
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