Rebuilding a Meddings Pacera A10 with issues

[DiyAddict]

I've been searching for a pillar drill to aid in a house restoration for a couple of months now. The collective wisdom seems to be to avoid anything modern and go for an older British made one. Well this Meddings/Pacera came up just a few miles from where I live, so I took the plunge and bought it from a farmer who was retiring. He used it mainly to drill big holes in metal farm equipment. It came with a load of large drills and reamers, and two MT3 chucks

It has a few issues and I'd like to get it back somewhere near its potential. After reading Brewdexta's inspiring account of his A10 restoration, I thought I'd share my rebuilding experience here too. My A10's issues are different to Brewdexta's and mine has the common MF4 (I think) head. Of course I'm also hoping you guys can give me some advice - I'm a complete beginner at servicing this sort of beast.

 

[DiyAddict]

And it is a beast - 546kg according to Meddings literature! The seller had a cherry picker, so we were able to load it into my small estate car in pieces. Two trips to protect the suspension. Back home alone, I was able to take out the precious lumps of cast iron with a ramp improvised from scaffold boards, a sack trolley and a lot of grunting.


There’s no obvious play in the quill or spindle, and the drill runs quietly. While both gears work, the drill pops out of high gear. When taking out the drain plug, zero oil came out. I’m expecting the tufnol gears to be in a poor state. Also the telescopic jack that supports the large table is missing its lower half, and the large collar handles that tighten up the head and the table are gone.

Here are some pieces at home. The head with the motor cowl and pulley cover removed

Here's the main pillar - 4.5" thick and solid steel!

On the whole, the table's in good condition, though some significant damage has been done under the vice. Someone must have tightened the retaining bolt very hard!

 

[zx9]

That is a right beast of a drill which would dwarf my little Meddings Driltru, I don't remember seeing one with an articulated column arm like that I will be watching your thread with interest.

 

[DiyAddict]

After laying the pieces out at home, I discovered a few more issues that I hadn’t noticed on initial inspection.


The most worrying one is the main spindle. It looks like someone has drilled out the socket for the MT tang completely, then reamed out the taper such that the drill shank now extends well beyond the original slot. To counter this, they’ve extended the spindle slot, but left the main quill casting as it was. Hence, when using a drift tool to remove the bit/chuck, they've knocked great lumps out of the quill. On both sides! Can't believe I didn't notice it before, but I was too busy checking for play and cracks in the main castings.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

 

[eLuSiVeMiTe]

As long as the taper is true and there's no high spots it shouldn't cause issue.

 

[DiyAddict]

That's a relief to hear. The rusty old reamer in the pic above seemed to run true. I have the quill out now. I'll know more when I can separate the spindle from the quill - currently searching online for the procedure.

 

[DiyAddict]

More evidence of the tough life this old drill's had. Someone's tried to take the spindle out using a screwdriver, and has broken the alloy collar at the bottom of the quill.

It turns out the correct procedure is quite simple. Remove the collar holding the depth bolt. This reveals a small hole in the quill in which a grub screw resides (missing in my case, with thread stripped). Remove the grub screw, then tap the top of the spindle lightly to push the collar and spindle out.

And...

Off it comes in two bits. Not me guv - the earlier photos show cracks in those exact positions, honest. I wish I had a lathe to make a new one.

Anyway, I can look at the spindle now unencumbered by the weight of the quill:

Not too bad I guess, considering the story so far. But inside it's scored pretty badly:

And the reason? Well here's the MT2 to MT3 extension that was in the drill when I bought it:

Doh! But am I downhearted? Well yes, absolutely. I guess my options are find another spindle or donor head, invest in an MT2 reamer and add to the ream depth myself, or attempt a similar repair with wet & dry stuck over a morse tapered bit. I'd be really grateful of any advice here. If I can crack this problem, the other issues are relatively minor and I'll still have a great drill (more photos of the heavy stuff soon).

On a positive note to end the evening, the sacrificial gears seem great:

The colour difference isn't as noticeable in normal light, but it looks like someone once loved this drill enough to replace the high gear.

The gearbox itself is packed with grease. I've read that this can be normal for some Meddings, but my gearbox had an oil drain pipe & plug, so I suspect the box started leaking oil through the seals and someone 'solved' it by reverting to grease.

 

[zx9]

I got a 1MT reamer from Tracey Tools for my Drummond's tail stock they will do you a 2MT hand reamer for £18 but that will be a lot more work than the scoring was on my lathe.
https://www.tracytools.com/straight-taper-reamers/socket-reamers

 

[DiyAddict]

I got a 1MT reamer from Tracey Tools for my Drummond's tail stock they will do you a 2MT hand reamer for £18 but that will be a lot more work than the scoring was on my lathe.
https://www.tracytools.com/straight-taper-reamers/socket-reamers

Thanks - that's useful to know. I've just had a nice old MT2 chuck delivered and despite the damage to the spindle, it runs surprisingly true. I'd need to ream a minimal amount out, or the tool will disappear so far into the spindle that I won't be able to drift it out again. So the scoring would still be present, but there would hopefully be enough smooth surface to provide a good friction fit.

 

[Seadog]

I think the arbor was centre punched to give it some grip on the knackered taper. A lot of machine drills are relieved on the middle portion of the taper. Provided you can get something like 60-70% of the surface back you'll probably not have any issues with the chuck although possibly you might with a relieved large diameter MT drill.

 

[DiyAddict]

I bought an MT2 hand reamer from Tracey tools - nice reamer for the price. But after an hour of toil, I'd made no discernible difference whatever. Maybe got rid of a couple of burrs. My first preference is to source a new spindle/donor machine, but for now I've ordered a cheap rough reamer set from Amazon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B079HWXSV5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It's coming from Hong Kong so will take a couple of weeks to arrive, but I have plenty to be getting on with in the meantime.

 

[DiyAddict]

Continuing with head disassembly. These cheap boxes from B & M bargains seem quite useful for keeping the bits ordered:

A bit of light sanding on the head to reveal it's been repainted twice by brush. First with the 1970's blue hammer finish, then with green:

I like both of these colours, but the paint finish is poor with plenty of runs, and they haven't bothered with any disassembly before painting. I can't let that go unrectified, plus I want to see what the original grey looks like.

Halfway through disassembly, the unpainted parts are more obvious:

Having finished disassembly and degreased further, I put the head in a trug with hot water hoping that the 'new' paint would flake off easily, but no dice - they seem to have degreased quite well before painting the blue and green. I tried wet and dry for about an hour with little progress, so in the end had to resort to a light coating of paint stripper in the hope of getting the top two layers off:

The rest should sand off fairly easily. Can't decide on the final colour. This is never going to be a museum piece, so I don't feel duty-bound to keep the original grey, which makes the machine look even more ancient than it is. On the other hand, I'd like to retain the smooth finish. Suggestions anyone?

 

[eLuSiVeMiTe]

Tractol and techaloid have given me good results. Available in any ral code and aerosol or tin. Smith and Allen sell it.

 

[Maker]

Are you sure the blue hammer finish wasn't the original paint and the grey is undercoat/primer? There's a lot of blue hammer ones about.

 

[DiyAddict]

Well I assumed that the original was grey because there was no blue under the decals, plates or motor cowling, but the blue looks very close to the Meddings blue. Nice MF4, by the way!

 

[zx9]

My drillthru is in a lightly hammered effect blue paint which I believe is original. Ignore the motor that is a later addition by the previous owner.

Edited to clarify colour.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

This is the one I bought from @cheb on here [his pic], I pretty sure this is the original paint colour

 

[DiyAddict]

I'm enjoying these pictures of functional drills - keep 'em coming!

 

[Maker]

Nice MF4, by the way!

It's not mine, just a picture from Google.

These are mine, not Meddings though;

The Pollard is freshly painted in the Tekaloid paint Elusivemite mentioned but the little green Herbert is original, that hammer finish paint seems to be pretty common on old drills.