Thought you guys may enjoy some process pictures. The bearing is an 'Angular contact' bearing, double row rated for thrust. My first task was to bore a hole in the aluminum block and press in the bearing.
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Next I had to square the sides of the shaft, followed by boring holes to receive heavy shoulder bolts. I wanted a piston fit on these so that they could act similarly to pins. The shaft is 303 stainless that I had custom made for this project. The attachment point to the end of the outrigger was the difficult part in all of this. I sourced weld nuts which would receive the shouldered bolts. These have a protruding boss which was able to engage a receiver. To keep them from moving as they were tacked up I decided the boss would need to be installed in a bored hole (exact size), and further restricted by being seated in a groove the exact width from flat to flat. The shouldered bolts are 316 stainless. The shaft, jam nut (316 stainless) and bolts will never rust.
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Once Patrick arrived with parts in hand we began the work by setting up the outrigger table on the Bridgeport. The goal was to remove the cast boss which was damaged and unable to properly retain the shaft. As originally designed, it left much to be desired in terms of precision and ease of movement. The design was that of a steel shaft plugged into an aluminum hole and intended to rotate without easily accessible grease or oiling points (you'd have to take it apart to grease it).
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What I did not expect was that the boss was slightly offset from the center of the outrigger support. My bearing would not allow for much offset, though I did offset it slightly once I was aware of this. We discussed that effect of moving it closer to center and recognized rapidly that it would affect the clearance when the outrigger was at its smallest position. Patrick had a great number of reference photos, so we had good information to work with, knowing what clearance was left there and giving us the ability to make reasonable assumptions on what course of action would be successful.
I milled up a receiver for the aluminum bearing block. The fit between receiver and block are exactly precise. Holes were bored for the bolts and bolt holes tapped in the outrigger table.
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My theory in this has been, when in doubt...go heavy! As example, the bearing is rated for 2650lbs static load. I also wanted to use a ball bearing due to the fact that it would eliminate the clearance necessary between a plain bearing and a shaft.
Next up the outrigger arm was trimmed to remove the original attachment.
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The plate welded by way of tacking, checking, adjusting, adding more tacks, checking, adjusting. This was a long process but the results were good, square to the machined surface on the bottom of the outrigger tube.
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The bearing and shaft were joined using a retaining compound rather than a press fit. This is easier on the bearing for sure, the retaining compound is loctite 680 and once it cures the connection is rock solid. It has 4000 psi shear strength.
Finally the outrigger support had to be trimmed back to allow clearance for the shaft, given the smaller offset between parts. I didn't photograph this part, however. Patrick took some great photos of the finished result so I didn't take any there either.