PSA for HF 34706 Lathe Owners.

[bradthenailer]

Several months ago I started noticing the reeve pulleys beginning to come apart on my HF lathe. As a matter a fact, when I bought the lathe 3 or 4 years ago and was installed a link belt, I noticed then that the pulley halves were already wavy and riddled with cracks.

I talked to Mannie (Monty) several months ago about measuring the shafts and pulleys on his JET 1236 lathe to see if the pulleys were the say.
We compared what I measured on the HF to his measurement on his JET and confirmed that the shafts were the same size on the Jet as on the HF. As you read on you'll see that the one area that neither of us was able to measure without tearing into the lathe is were a problem pops up.

Fast forward 2 weeks ago.

I ordered the pulleys from Jet/Wilton Jet part# (JWL1236-12 & JWL1236-29) The total was about $70 shipped. I got them this past Thursday and I can tell you this pulleys are way better then the HF pulleys. I wouldn't even bother putting HF pulleys back on your HF if they ever break. They are plan junk.

Installation:

Installing them isn't that big a deal, but I ran into a problem that I wasn't expecting. The inner half pulley on the head wouldn't fit.
It fit the shaft just fine, it was the flange that fit into the bearing that was wrong. The flange O.D. on the JET pulley is smaller than the one on the HF pulley. The most logical reason I could come to as to why this is, is because the bearing is much "stouter" on the JET lathe.

A simple solution to this is to replace that bearing, BUT... I don't know if the O.D. of the JET bearing matches the O.D. of the HF bearing.

Luckily, that particular pulley was the only one that was in good shape, So I left it on the lathe and replaced the other three.

The O.D. of the Jet Pulley flange is 1.180in
The O.D. on the HF pulley flange is 1.378in

I tried matching up a bearing online but never found one. The bearing would have to be ..... I.D. - 1.180in, O.D. - 2.438in, thickness - .485in.
The bearing in the HF is a Shenli CSL bearing. 6007 RS
I found this bearing online, but of course, it's useless with the JET pulley.

The JET bearing part# is BB 6006Z which I believe is 30mm x 55mm x 13mm (anyone know???)

By my calculations you will need a 30mm x 62mm x 12mm bearing.

HTH.

[TDHofstetter]

That #6006Z is a standard bearing size, used for all sortsa' stuff. Like bicycles. Costs $10 retail. The closest thing to a 30mm x 62mm x 12mm bearing would be a #6206Z, which is 16mm thick.

[bradthenailer]

I've learned from another source that the pulleys on a Grizzly G0462
will fit the HF lathe. The part #'s are P0462009 (Motor pulleys) and P0462021 (Spindle pulleys)

I have no idea the quality of the pulleys but I would think they are better than the quality of the HF pulleys.

[Doug B]

I agree with you Brad that the HF pulleys are crap...but I replaced mine with the HF brand anyway...

I appreciate your PSA though...I'd really like to have better pulleys on my lathe, but so far the new ones have been working like a charm.