Revive and Repair - older LT40

[Andries]

A buddy has taken over ownership of a 1993 manual LT40.

The original owner didn't use it very much cause he was having issues with blades breaking. He talked to WM in Indy on many occasions and wasn't able to fix the problem - partly because he thought he could engineer some 'fixes' that WM hadn't come up with yet. I never met the man, and by all accounts he was a great guy and a successful farmer, but fine tuning a bandsaw sawmill was one of those things that just seemed to elude him. He has passed on a few years ago and is sorely missed by family and friends.

So, buddy has been cleaning up the mill and got the B&S 18 HP. motor running, after a hibernation of at least five years. I was asked to have a look at the mill, and yup, seems to me there are issues allright.
Alignment, some really creative mods and some enthusiastic welding have created a mill that needs some help to get it back to factory spec. Suggested to my friend to get registered as the new owner, and I'll call WM to get a quote on a box of blades, B57 belts etc. etc.

SO, here's two questions for the collective genius of the Forum . . .

There's a cradle for an alternator, but if there was one, it's MIA. Isn't a main drive pulley v-belt groove to power one either, nor wiring connections for battery re-charge. Thats a puzzlement, especially as my own LT30 has a beefy alternator hooked up to the Onan motor. I'll check with WM, but does this engine have a magneto style power unit on it?

Second question - it a long and sad story, so skip that . . . . but the V-rail took a whack which bent it and smashed the mast pad.


Again, I'll call WM for parts, but how in the heck would you replace one of those puppies (after doing our best to straighten the rail)?

Once thats done, time for a full alignment, new band and belts, and put the old girl back in service.
Looking for some advice and experience from the wisdom of the FF. (yup, even from Forumites with 'goatees' and horns)  :D

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

This is the beginning of a good story. I commend you on the pictures, very good.
Yes.....call Woodmizer. They will be a big help.
Keep the updates coming....this is interesting. 

[Magicman]

There's a cradle for an alternator, but if there was one, it's MIA. Isn't a main drive pulley v-belt groove to power one either

I have a different engine, but my "cradle" is empty too.  My alternator runs on an inside groove on the output shaft pulley. 

That ole gal needs restoring.   

[nz1h]

On your V-rail if you can get it off use a torch and 3 lbs hammer on a steel table.  If not pull the pad off and use a wedge in the area you don't want to bend, use a clamp to hold wedge and V-rail to the post. Then heat it with a torch
beat it with the above hammer. Remember to over bend just a little to allow for spring back. Try not to heat your post to much.

alain

[Andries]

Thanks for the quick replies guys.
Agreed, with a bit of TLC, this mill could be a good little manual mill. A full restore is what buddy and I are aiming at.
Poston and MM - look forward to thanking you both in person at the PigRoast! . . . and sharing a few tall tales.

On your V-rail if you can get it off use a torch and 3 lbs hammer on a steel table.  If not pull the pad off and use a wedge in the area you don't want to bend, use a clamp to hold wedge and V-rail to the post. Then heat it with a torch beat it with the above hammer. Remember to over bend just a little to allow for spring back. Try not to heat your post to much.
alain

alain - 'hit the nail on the head'.  :D  To do a righteous job of straightening - I'm thinking that taking the rail off is the way to go too.
However, (there's ALWAYS a 'however' involved, right?) there's some heavy duty welds at both top and bottom of the mast - can't see any obvious way to get that thang offa there.
Is removal even possible? . . . without a complete saw head take-apart?

[uler3161]

There's a cradle for an alternator, but if there was one, it's MIA. Isn't a main drive pulley v-belt groove to power one either, nor wiring connections for battery re-charge. Thats a puzzlement, especially as my own LT30 has a beefy alternator hooked up to the Onan motor. I'll check with WM, but does this engine have a magneto style power unit on it?

Looks like the same engine that came on our '88 LT40. It didn't have an external alternator.

[Kbeitz]

I'm a fabricator and I remove bent rails/beams and whatever to be replaced or fixed.
It's real easy with 6" cut off grind wheels. I use about 20 cut off wheels per week.
use safety glasses. I remove the 4" guard and replace it with a 6" guard so I can use the 6" wheels.



 

[Jim_Rogers]

I asked a woodmizer tech at an open house once about replacing my pad on my "V" up and down rails. They say that they should never need replacing.
And that in all the years that he had worked for WM they have only ever done one. It costs thousands of dollars to do to take it all apart at the service center and put back together.
I think he said that the only reason they did it was that the mill was in a fire or some other major damage.

All my pads don't touch all side of my vertical posts.
I suppose I need an alignment to make them all rub, but it still cuts straight lumber the way it is.

I would not remove the pad but do the best you can to push that bent rail back and get it close to where it should be. If it doesn't touch and it cuts straight lumber then leave it alone.

Jim Rogers

[Andries]

Woodmizer's Doug Hicks on parts was great. He just sent me three manuals in pdf form; engine parts, mill parts, operator manual and an estimate for our 'revival' parts/shopping list.
More than $600, but half of that is a box of 7 degree bands. Gas and lube tanks, two drive belts (one spare), four B57 belts (two to use, two for backup) mast pad, feed chain (so rusted the kinks wouldn't let the head go completely to the back end of the mill), all the small stuff to bring factory specs back. Small price to pay for a sharp sawmill.  :D
Doug cleared up the mystery of the MIA Alternator. Never was one, the engine has an internal magneto system which is good'nuff for a manual mill battery re-charge. My own LT30 doesn't have that, it has to have an external alternator to produce the elecricity.
He also mentioned that it was good to talk with someone who had a kinda good knowledge of sawmills, and I put that down to time spent on the FForum, and all you savvy folks out there. Thanks!

[isawlogs]

  RE Mast pads....   

  Get new pad. put it on and shim it to place, don't bother wacking the rail, if you do, you may bend it else where. Make some shims out of flat bar steel and shim till you get it close and it will be good as new and a whole bunch easier then trying to straighten the rail.  That rail even bent , if the pad is shimed to the mast, it aint going to affect the sawing.

Its how I would go about it.... taking the rail off you are looking at a heep of work.. then you will need adjust two if not four pads when you put it back on, depending on how well it goes back on, you may have to adjust the pads on the other face of the rail.... think that one over before cutting that rail off.
  Shims are easy to make and to tapper them, you can grind them fairly quickly or you can get some bevel washers that are tappered, google '' bevel washers '', I tried to get a link but its beyond my capabilities at the moment.......

Marcel.
 

[Dave Shepard]

I asked a woodmizer tech at an open house once about replacing my pad on my "V" up and down rails. They say that they should never need replacing.
And that in all the years that he had worked for WM they have only ever done one. It costs thousands of dollars to do to take it all apart at the service center and put back together.
I think he said that the only reason they did it was that the mill was in a fire or some other major damage.

All my pads don't touch all side of my vertical posts.
I suppose I need an alignment to make them all rub, but it still cuts straight lumber the way it is.

I would not remove the pad but do the best you can to push that bent rail back and get it close to where it should be. If it doesn't touch and it cuts straight lumber then leave it alone.

Jim Rogers

There should be a business card gap on one pad, the others should be touching the mast. You check the top posts with the head solo the way up, and the bottom with the head all the way down. (Or the reverse). When checking the top gap, the bottom will most likely have opened up, and the same when you check the bottom, the top will open up. Don't worry about it. Just set the gap where the manual says.

[deadfall]

My feed chain had some pretty stiff spots too, but mostly at the far end.  I backed the head to the near end and dropped the far end of the chain, bunched it all up to the head and dropped the mess into a tub of diesel and let it soak for days.  It came out of there still really stiff in spots.  Then it was WD-40 and two pairs of Vice-Grips, working every link until limber.  I used some a needle nose pliers to test each of the rollers to see they turn.  I guess I saved $75 by doing this nasty job.  I have kept rain off that chain ever since, and continue hitting it with ATF and it's doing great.  Loose as a goose and all the rollers turn freely.  I check that because I was told stuck rollers will kill the sprocket.

======================

There you have it folks: Wood-Mizer pink!

[deadfall]

Get new pad. put it on and shim it to place...

Good thinking there, Isaw.

[Andries]

Marcel Jim and Dave - excellent suggestions, thank you. Kbeitz: no disrespect, but neither of use is the machinist or metal worker that is needed to do that.
The obsessive part of me would vote to take it apart and straighten that V-rail up. Probably a week of tool time and close calls in lifting the saw head and motor up and off the masts, which neither of us amateur mechanics have.
Also, buddy is eager to get going on a 50 by 100 foot sawmill/pole barn - I know that he'd go with the "shims and washers plus a business card gap" advice, plus the "don't worry about it" part. He's not one to feel shame over a bent up rail, as long as the mill cuts true.
I'll get the green light from him to spend his money on his parts. (He's a police officer, so I don't mess around  ;))

[Andries]

Deadfall - the bucket of diesel sounds good. Saving $75 bucks sounds good too.
But I've got a sampler kit being shipped to me from one of the forum sponsors - LogRite / BlueCreeper.
That BlueCreeper is said to be what every saw milling, tractor owning, outdoorsy mechanic needs to get rusty stuff moving.
Seems the Forum's top dog (term of endearment Jeff) is a big fan of this stuff - I'll use it on the feed chain before we buy a new one.
Then the mill will be pink and blue . . . Oh yuk!

[deadfall]

Complimented by Wood-Mizer salmon.

Not to worry, eh?  No one's going to see this except snow blind Canadians, right?

[pineywoods]

A few years ago. I acquired an almost identical mill. Mine's a 95 but it had been much abused, so I have been through the revive and repair bit. The briggs is a good motor, I finally replaced mine at around 6,000 hours. It still ran ok, just rather tired. A bracket is there but no alternator. Alternator was for mills with larger motor and hydraulics. Like your farmer friend, I thought I could improve on woodmizer engineering in a few places.. Don't waste your time. By the time your mill was manufactured, the lt40 had been in production for close to 10 years, any bugs had been pretty well taken care of. Every "improvement " I came up with proved to be inferior to the production version. There are some "upgrades" that are worthwhile.
The blade guide rollers came with greaseable bearings. They work ok, but have a short life due to high rotation speed slinging off all the grease. When they fail, replace them with sealed high speed bearings. The drive side band wheel bearings run in an oil bath inside an enclosure. There are 2 plugs, one on top to add atf, the other on the side to check the oil level. Couple of hose barbs and a 6 inch piece of clear plastic tubing to serve as a sight gauge makes a worthwhile addition. Be sure to check that oil level plus the up-down gearbox before any serious sawing.
On the "bent" head rails... Leave messing with that until last, after you have gone through everything else and done some sawing. I think you will find it is normal for one or more plastic pads to not rub on the vertical posts all the way up and down. I think the posts are warped from welding stresses. Looks odd, but it doesn't hurt a thing.
Blue creeper..The stuff is every bit as good as is reputed to be. Only thing, be stingy with it. Just a couple of drops works just as good as flooding a part with it. Once you get everything checked out and start sawing, there are some things that will turn that mill into a highly desireable machine. Mine now has full hydraulics and remote control, all home made...

[Brucer]

... there's some heavy duty welds at both top and bottom of the mast - can't see any obvious way to get that thang offa there.

The V-brace on the blade side of the head should be removable -- with some planning and effort. The entire brace is adjustable, which is how you adjust the friction pad clearance. There's a pair of brackets at the top and bottom of the V-brace, each consisting to two parallel flat-bars. They form an adjustable slot. At the end of each bracket is a jack screw that will push the V-brace toward the mast.

After some careful preparation you should be able to remove the bolts that hold the two brackets in place. You will need some blocking to support the sawhead off the bed of the mill at both ends -- drive side and idle side. The blocking will support the entire weight of the sawhead and give you enough room under the sawhead to unbolt the V-brace bracket.

You cannot support the sawhead with the lift chain, or by fastening it to the top of the mast. As soon as you loosen the V-brace the entire head will try to tip over so it has to be fully supported from below (or with an overhead hoist).

You will probably have to remove a bunch of stuff to get the V-brace mounting/adjusting bolts off. It's annoying but it will also reduce the weight that you have to support. The important thing is to examine the whole thing carefully and, figure out exactly what needs to come off, in what order. Also figure out where it's going to go as you remove it. You don't want to get 90% of the way there only to find the blocking is in your way.

... I think you will find it is normal for one or more plastic pads to not rub on the vertical posts all the way up and down. I think the posts are warped from welding stresses. ...

Exactly. Unfortunately 4 pads have to make contact no matter where the head is on the mast -- the outside ones on top and the inside ones on the bottom. And of course the damaged one is one of the inside bottom ones :(.

My mill's a 2006 LT40, and I've never completely removed the V-brace. However, I've loosened top and bottom brackets and backed the V-brace as far away from the mast as I could (issue with one of the friction pads). As far as I could see, you should be able to take the V-brace right off ... after removing a few obstructions (such as the blade guide roller mount).

If it were me, I'd be replacing the V-brace with a new one, but only after I was sure I could get the old one off. But I'm a bit weird that way :.

[Chuck White]

If you don't have the owners manual for your mill, contact Wood-Mizer for a copy.

They might not have a hard copy but they likely will have it available on-line, or maybe fax or email you a copy!

The 4 slide-pads are not supposed to "all" be in contact with the mast at all points, there are alignment instructions for the slide-pads in the manual!

[Remle]

Marcel Jim and Dave - excellent suggestions, thank you. Kbeitz: no disrespect, but neither of use is the machinist or metal worker that is needed to do that.
The obsessive part of me would vote to take it apart and straighten that V-rail up. Probably a week of tool time and close calls in lifting the saw head and motor up and off the masts, which neither of us amateur mechanics have.
Also, buddy is eager to get going on a 50 by 100 foot sawmill/pole barn - I know that he'd go with the "shims and washers plus a business card gap" advice, plus the "don't worry about it" part. He's not one to feel shame over a bent up rail, as long as the mill cuts true.
I'll get the green light from him to spend his money on his parts. (He's a police officer, so I don't mess around  ;))

The first thing I would do is to straighten/ replace the bent rail, after all, all the alignment will be affected if it is not fixed properly. I think you can remove the rail easily. Put a block under the other rail and lash that rail to the mast with a strap, top and bottom, support the other end of the saw head and strap that down. Remove the adjusting blots in the rail and it should retract enough to be removed. If you do it right know you won't be fighting it later to get/ keep things aligned.

PS: Take a battery reading and then start the engine and take another to see if the charging system is working..

[Andries]

Not to worry, eh?  No one's going to see this except snow blind Canadians, right?

deadfall: hee hee, nice, its evident you've got a fine appreciation for your Northern neighbours. Yup, once it's under snow, the colour scheme doesn't matter.

.... Once you get everything checked out and start sawing, there are some things that will turn that mill into a highly desireable machine. Mine now has full hydraulics and remote control, all home made...

Piney; thanks for your comments, like you say, one step at a time. We'll probably take this from tweaking the mill back to original, building the sawmill shed, setting up a good workflow footprint, then . . (whew) look at adding upgrades to the mill.
So, after reading the comments, there appears to be a 50/50 split between two camps.
1. Shim and bolt in a new pad and bring the saw head back into alignment. The V-rail bend will add a bit of 'character' to the mill; won't affect performance.
2. Take the V-rail off by detaching the adjustment brackets and jack bolts. Straighten the rail back to spec and re-assemble, complete with new friction pad.
Dale is working and I'm milling and dodging thunderstorms today.
Thinking we'll put our heads together and decide which way he wants to go on this - probably place the order for WM parts early next week.
Thanks everybody - I'll keep this post going and add photos as we go.

[Kbeitz]

Depending on how much its bent you might be able to take a belt sander to the  high spots....

[deadfall]

Looking at this photo, the spine of the angle iron looks pretty straight.  As has been noted, the outside lower pads are not the ones in tight contact.  This is the one that has to be snug to the post.  I can see forming the perfect wedge shaped shim, attaching the pad to it, and fitting it to the inside of the bend and JB Welding and pinning everything in place.  Cut off the old pad bolts and lose them.  Your shim can be drilled and tapped for bolts coming in from the outside.  I don't see more than cosmetic damage after such a workaround as this.  If you can handle the pink, you should be able to handle the dent.

Looking my mill over closely, any wrench-based approach looks like an insane amount of labor.

[Brucer]

It's not trivial but if you already have covers removed, blade guides removed, etc. it isn't that much extra work. If you're going to replace the pad you will need to do some of that anyway in order to slack off the V-brace.

The thing to remember is that the bent end of the V-brace is very important for maintaining blade alignment.

[isawlogs]

 Once the pad is shimed to the mast, the alignement won't be an issue. the mast seams to be straight, so aligne the pad with shims, and saw ....