1964bigfoot

i just push the heater hose on the shaft -- it usually is a real pain to get on and i don't have any problems with them slipping. as far as the bearings turning i have never had an issue there unless i tried to run the drum with nothing in it. an empty drum won't spin. fill with at least water to test the more weight the better it turns. good luck any more questions feel free to ask. After reading your comments and Babaganoosh's about having a hard time getting the hose on the shaft I looked at the hose closely and it says gas line on there and not heater hose. Looking at the inside of the hose it is very smooth so I wonder if the heater hose that you guys put on has a rough surface. Anyway I sprayed some glue on the shaft and inside the hose and that took care of that. The bearings were a little stiff to move even off the shaft so what I did was remove the front shaft and bearings. I put the tumbler on my wooden table and on a piece of 2 x 4 I installed 4 wheel rollers the same position and height as the shaft would have been. I put the drum on and let her go and it is working perfectly. I ran it for about 18 hours cleaning some brass. This morning I took off the rollers and switched the back driven shaft to the front and put the front ones back on in the rear position and mounted the pulley on the back again. So basically I have broken in bearing up the front now and the rear shaft wont matter because it is being driven. I fired it up and away it went. So it just needed the bearings to be broken in so when you go to the store, try the bearings and see how hard they are to move without grease in them. Mine were not that hard to move but it still didn't work till they were broken in.

The hose shouldnt move, its a royal pain in the ass to get on actually. I had to lube the shaft with windex to get the hose on. Even new the pillow bearings should move freely. There is something wrong with them. I would say grease them but even new with no grease they will spin. Check to make sure the bearings are aligned in the steel block correctly. I know I got one that was cocked to the side a little bit. I put some spray on glue inside the hose and on the shaft and that took care of that problem. The pillow bearings are all about the same as far as the amount of effort I need to move them with my fingers without them being mounted. I have greased the bearings and it didn't really make any difference. Right now I have the motor turning the shaft with two of them running with no load on them and I will let them run all day and see if that free's them up any. If it does then I will simply just change the bearings for the other ones and give it a try. If the bearing don't free up much then I will take the front shaft and bearings off and mount some simple wheel rollers on a piece of wood to support the front of the drum and run it like that until the bearings free up and then change shafts and then I should be good to go.

biggdawg : I recently found this tumbler build and lots of great info. I built one just about exactly what you made and I was having problems with the 1/2" heater hose slipping on the shaft. Did you glue the heater hose onto the shaft so it would not slip? I think I might have to add another pulley to drive the second shaft, my pillow bearings are new and not broken in yet so the drum sits on top of the shafts and hardly spins because the second shaft is hardly moving at all.