Something Bad Happened..

[1911 rookie]

well, it's probably not that bad, but it kind of seized up. i have stripped it down, no shell plate or primer unit or anything, and there is something not moving well in the main shaft and/or pivots. i was curious if it was OK for me to disassemble the pivots, i have never done that and after reading the thread at the top of this forum i wonder if perhaps that is my problem. I do clean and lube the rest of it including the mainshaft with 30w as recommended but haven't done anything to the pivot shafts. I see little holes in the castings over the shafts, perhaps i am supposed to be doing something there? Well any ideas will help, i am sure to be calling Dillon tech tomorrow.

thanks,

jason

Edited February 16, 2006 by 1911 rookie

[XRe]

Call Dillon tomorrow They'll help you out in spades. While those holes look like grease fittings, they apparently aren't. I believe that in order to lube those points, you do have to disassemble them, but... if you're not pressed for time (like, have to have ammo tonight), they'll be the guys to give you the straight skinny

BTW, forum member "dillon" is a member of Dillon's staff, and helps out here regularly, so you might see him in this thread, too...

[1911 rookie]

I talked to Dillon today and they said what we all thought, remove grease the pivot pins, apparently that is something I should be doing. Hopefully i have screwed anything up too much.

Fortunately it's such a great machine that i have several months worth of ammo stocked up so there isn't much pressure, just embarrassment for not treating it right.

Jason

[10mmdave]

I once had my 650 sieze up, it was at the pivot points. I removed them (took the whole thing apart)

stoned off the burr I raised and it's been working ever since, I do oil it now !

Funny though, I don't ever remember reading anything about oiling those points, course it makes

sense now!

I don't have any holes at my pivot points, that might be a good thing to add, I just put a few drops

of oil in the space between the arm and the base.

[dajarrel]

If you haven't galled the metal too badly, you should be able to break the pivots loose with any good penetratiing oil. Sili-Kroil is one good one. Even WD-40 will do. Spray it liberally and let it sit. Try to get it to run down the shaft. Squirt it in the holes on the casting. You will make a big mess but generally if you can get the lube to the stuck spot, it will move.

Just something to try until you hear from Dillon.

dj

[1911 rookie]

i talked to Dillon today, they said i needed to lube the pivots. So tonight i tore it all apart, the bottom pivot was seized up tight. took a bit of persuasion to get it out, there were burs all around one end of it. spent a few hours with various tools and JB bore paste (that stuff is awesome) and it is all moving like it is new again. I'll have to pay more attention because it tore up the inside of the lower casting and i think the grease is going to leak out faster now.

thanks for the help everyone.

jason

[dillon]

Actually, you probably haven't done any serious harm to the crank. Any galled area just becomes a reservoir for grease. We use wheel bearing grease, and use a cotton swab to liberally grease the hole in the casting, liberally grease the pin, then assemble. When installing the connecting pin through the bottom of the shaft and crank, be sure to first remove the set screw from the bottom of the shaft. When reinstalling this set screw, tighten it down until it stops, then back it up 1/8 turn. This allows the pivot to float a little.

[Flexmoney]

Wheel bearing grease? Hey Dillon, you ought to try some Slide Glide. It's the shizzle. Brain can probably hook you up. Heck, it would make a great addition to the Dillon catalog!

[XRe]

Maybe this is already out there, but... what's the recommended service interval for the press, etc??

I think I loaded 30K rounds on a 650, in the past, without ever lubing the pivots, etc...??? Was I just lucky, or is the machine just built that well???

I've got a couple of thou on my 550, now - should I be tearing it down this weekend, and lubing it up?

[dillon]

For most users, cleaning every time you change calibers, or every 4-5000 rounds is fine.

Lube it maybe twice a year. Mostly, avoid the use of WD-40, Break-Free, or aerosol-solvent cleaners and lubricants. Use 30 wt motor oil on the shaft, grease everywhere else.

We use wheel bearing grease in house.

[XRe]

Obviously, by ordering the press maintenance kit, one gets all the right lubricants That frequency sounds reasonable. I do periodically blow the press off w/ compressed air, etc, trying to keep it clean-ish.

[Rico567]

I got the maintenance kit, but the little syringe full of grease they put in there isn't very useful. It can't develop enough pressure to force that grease into those teeny holes & into the pivots. The pivots have grease grooves machined into them, but you will need to change out that grease periodically. Also, and has been pointed out elsewhere, there are NO specifications in the XL650 manual for lube other than the 30W motor oil on the shaft.

If you search around, though, someone on another thread (from Dillon) has posted additional lube points. There is little doubt that, depending on how much you crank on your 650, that you need to periodically lube the upper and lower toggle shafts, and the pivot shaft that runs through the bottom of the ram. I finally just broke out the wrenches, tore it apart, cleaned and repacked all that, and it wasn't too hard to do. Give yourself about half an hour. The only shaft that needed tapping out was the pivot at the bottom of the ram (don't forget to back out the Allen screw at the bottom!). If you do need to tap anything out, just be sure to use a brass mallet, or an arbor made from a dowel, anything softer than the metal of the pivot.