MoNsTeR
Member
The last few times I've used my 550, I noticed some stiffness in the stroke. Right near the bottom of the stroke (as in, with the shellplate carrier approaching the priming position) there's a "hump" in the force necessary to move the press handle. It gets harder to push, I keep pushing, then it peaks and gets easier to push. The same thing happens on the reverse of the stroke as well.
I gave the ram a fresh coat of oil just to be sure, but that didn't improve it much. So I removed the set screw from the bottom of the ram (13789) and knocked out the big pin that couples the linkage to the ram (13830). Now able to move the linkage seperate from the ram, it became clear that the increased effort was due to the linkage moving very stiffly, like it had been lubed with glue. It's stiff both at the upper and lower points of rotation.
So I figured I'd just take the whole thing apart, clean it and lube it, and that oughta be that. Except I have no idea how to go about it. It looks like the link arms (13583) have to be detached from the frame before the crank (13409) can be removed. But it's not at all evident how to do that. Obviously the pins (13834 and 13881) must be removed, but how?
Alternatively, I'm open to other ways of smoothing out the operation of these parts. Maybe there's something I can spray on them to get the gunk out, and/or some type of lube I can apply that doesn't require disassembly.
I gave the ram a fresh coat of oil just to be sure, but that didn't improve it much. So I removed the set screw from the bottom of the ram (13789) and knocked out the big pin that couples the linkage to the ram (13830). Now able to move the linkage seperate from the ram, it became clear that the increased effort was due to the linkage moving very stiffly, like it had been lubed with glue. It's stiff both at the upper and lower points of rotation.
So I figured I'd just take the whole thing apart, clean it and lube it, and that oughta be that. Except I have no idea how to go about it. It looks like the link arms (13583) have to be detached from the frame before the crank (13409) can be removed. But it's not at all evident how to do that. Obviously the pins (13834 and 13881) must be removed, but how?
Alternatively, I'm open to other ways of smoothing out the operation of these parts. Maybe there's something I can spray on them to get the gunk out, and/or some type of lube I can apply that doesn't require disassembly.
