I have a 5 year old Chester Conquest Super mill which I have recently fitted with 3 axis DROs, (which was a great move), but I have just noticed slight lateral play in the spindle accompanied by a slightly different rumble when it’s running. I suspect the bearings but I’m a bit wary about attempting to dismantle the assembly. Can anyone give me any advice please?

Obviously not a rivetting topic so I might as well just offer my own feedback. I dismantled as much as I could to get to the spindle bearings but I could see no way of extracting the spindle assembly without removing the head and control box. So I just cleaned as much as possible, greased the lower bearing and reassembled. Much to my surprise the noise is much reduced and the play has gone. I suspect the grease is responsible for the noise reduction and re-tightening the castle nut at the top for the elimination of play. I don’t really understand the latter because the bearings are just the plain type, and I didn’t expect the pre-load to have any effect on lateral play.

I’ve read the other threads and looked at the suggested videos but they don’t show the actual dismantling. At some point, I would like to strip the whole spindle down, but looking at the assembly diagram I can’t see how the shaft can be removed without a full strip down because the pair of high/low gears would foul each other.

I would appreciate any advice from anyone who has experience of this particular mini-mill.