So my question is - Where can I get a rebuild kit, if such a thing exists? If not what should I replace? OR - Is this just a process of openning it up and seeing what you think is bad and just replacing that, like I would do with an old car.

Here's what's going on:

My J is like 20+ years old. It's noisy to me but I don't know how loud one of these should really be. I know machine shops can be noisy places that's about it. I thought I had a big problem yesterday with something. But I found a loose motor bolt. Tightenned that up and things are back to normal. Actually I put a lock washer in there too. So my strange noises could have been that loose motor slapping on the casting of the vari speed.

Running it in low gear is a little noisier, but not much. Forward and reverse are the same.

Also when I reduce the motor speed with the VFD, the belt is squeaky, that's gotta be a lot of the noise at full speed. There's just some noise inherent to a 2 hp belt drive and all those gears going round.

When rev'd up to 4200 I can no longer hear the radio on the other side of the garage. 30db maybe? It's pretty loud. But not as loud as say my worm drive DeWalt circular saw.

So anyway, I've seen posts about the keys on the motor pulley assembly being worn. I need to check that. then I saw a similar post about the same thing on the front. Need to check that.

Then I saw something about adjusting a clutch and the directions are in the manual. Need to look that up.

Then I see that the back gears are s'posed to be lubed for "life". Well 20+ years is close to life I figure. I gotta imagine the grease is breaking down in there as I type. So that needs to be done I expect.

So at this point I'm thinking I may be getting pretty deep into this thing so maybe I should just overhaul it.

I would think that new bearings would be in order. I know I have one on the top of the vari speed that's dried up. I force grease into it around the seals every couple of months. Seems to work. But it should be replaced. So that tells me that any other sealed bearings in there are running on borrowed time too.

I found this place on the web

http://www.alternativemachinetool.com/

I also have a refferal from the Yahoo Bridgeport group for a Dee Reel.

But....that's all I got.

I am in Orange County CA. I might be looking for someone to re-scrape the machine too. Maybe. They are not that bad. Could be I just need new Gibs or something. Not a clue what that costs either.

Thanks,
-jd