Thread: Another G. Vernier FV 3 TO mill

Hi forum,

I've got beautiful G.Vernier FV 3 TO the other day.
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The machine has seen better days. It wasn't running for some time. All of the gear boxes came completely dry. It is also missing some handles and other bits and pieces. The head is missing a draw bar and one of the jaws in the holder.

After fixing the wiring I've got everything kinda moving with no particular luck in moving Y axis (the reason will follow up). So I decided to give it a good clean, opened the pandora box....
there isn't much information available on the internet, except for one french forum and Ewan's thread in this forum I couldn't find anything else.

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The rotating table wasn't a piece of cake. Packed with rust...

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Took a little bit of time to figure out how dials are secured also somebody in her previous life was trying to seal oil leaks with silicon, that didn't help much when I was trying to remove the front case, but finally.
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The reason for my Y-axis not being good... No balls in the bearing, every single one of them is in the inside the case

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Some more photos

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All of the bearings have enormous slack ... ~ 1mm.

The auto feed and main gearbox is yet to come off. I have a problem with auto feed gearbox see photo
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How to remove the marked cap?

Bearings question, I have sizes but I'd like to know if I can use normal bearings all do they need to be high precision. If anybody can suggest.

I'd like to hear from others who's got same/similar mill G.Vernier FV3, FV3S, FV300 etc. I don't have a draw bar on the head, can somebody share any pictures, sketches links of theirs?

Horizontal arbor is missing but supports are there. Where to get the arbor from?

More to come...

The bearings should be fine being 'normal'. The only place high precision is needed is for the spindle, to control movement. Everywhere else it is just for reducing friction.
Modern (reputable brand name) bearings these days are pretty good. It would not surprise me if they are better quality than they would have been 50 years ago anyway.

Michael

Originally Posted by Michael G

The bearings should be fine being 'normal'. The only place high precision is needed is for the spindle, to control movement. Everywhere else it is just for reducing friction.
Modern (reputable brand name) bearings these days are pretty good. It would not surprise me if they are better quality than they would have been 50 years ago anyway.

Michael

Thanks Michael.
The originals are all NTN, which is in the top 5 nowadays.

Welcome to the forum.

Hi and Welcome to a Top Forum.
If I could ask a huge favour of you, and that is to change your location from Australia, to a town or suburb and state, please? It's to make helping you a lot easier, should you need to get something or require a hand or similar.
We are only to happy to help, but knowing your location makes it easier for everyone, otherwise we'll send you to some place in Sydney when you reside in Brisbane or elsewhere.
Kryn

Originally Posted by KBs PensNmore

Hi and Welcome to a Top Forum.
If I could ask a huge favour of you, and that is to change your location from Australia, to a town or suburb and state, please? It's to make helping you a lot easier, should you need to get something or require a hand or similar.
We are only to happy to help, but knowing your location makes it easier for everyone, otherwise we'll send you to some place in Sydney when you reside in Brisbane or elsewhere.
Kryn

no worries. Done

Thanks kyp

Keep progressing. Bearings replaced, all gaskets drawn and laser cut. Coming together slowly.
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Congratulations on acquiring such a nice machine Kyp, it looks like you got her just in time, with so much water in the oil, you seem to have been fortunate that there wasn't all that much rust on precision surfaces. I hope that your good fortune continues as you delve deeper into this machine. I'm surprised that with virtually no oil, shot bearings, and the level of contamination internally, that gear teeth look pretty good as far as I could see.
I never fail to be amazed but disappointed at how owners of such machines can abuse and neglect them to the extent that they do, but it is very nice to see someone rescue them from the scrap heap, well done.

You're not mucking around with getting it up and running! That's going to be a mighty fine machine when you're done. Your efforts will be rewarded.

Keep posting.

Simon

You are really getting on with things, I absolutely hate the oil-water emulsion it always smells foul and reminds me of all the times you get asked to work of something neglected, great work!

Also what taper is this, I might know of a decent arbour or two down here in Melbourne, I bought some 1" and 27mm 40 taper arbors recently for reasonable prices.

Originally Posted by caskwarrior

You are really getting on with things, I absolutely hate the oil-water emulsion it always smells foul and reminds me of all the times you get asked to work of something neglected, great work!

Also what taper is this, I might know of a decent arbour or two down here in Melbourne, I bought some 1" and 27mm 40 taper arbors recently for reasonable prices.

It is NT40, well manual says SA 40 but should be same thing. Stupid me just missed 2 on Grays, was to busy putting it back together.

got movement.


Z axis has never seen oil, was very stiff at the beginning but got better as I moved table up and down several times.

I've left to much of backlash in Y and Z, nothing terrible but it's pushing the seals out a bit. Well at least it's moving now.

some problems with auto feed gearbox. The machine has got 2 speeds. Only one works properly, the video is the fastest I can do at the moment. Also it sounds like the chain is slipping on rapids, it did look like to much slack but I was hoping it should be fine, so it is not, will take it apart again and replace the chain. Anybody knows anything about the chain drive in this machine? what sort of slack is normal?

Originally Posted by simonl

You're not mucking around with getting it up and running! That's going to be a mighty fine machine when you're done. Your efforts will be rewarded.

Keep posting.

Simon

Keeping my fingers crossed. It's really well build and I was really surprised the gears are all intact after sitting in so much rust. The only things really suffered from rust are the worm gear shaft from the swivel base but it is really static component so probably not that important.

Welcome to the forum. The machine looks good and no doublt will look better once your finished. As someone basically said it's suprising to see the gears are damaged after sitting for so long.