Miehle Vertical V36 flywheel removal??

Hello,
The wheel is pressed on to the shaft. It should be removed with a puller or pressed off. I would not try to bump it off with hammers, etc. that will do much harm before the wheel is off.
I recommend you take the entire assembly off the side of the press. It needs to be off anyway to replace the gear.
Good luck,
Jim

I’ve been too busy to deal with the removal of the flywheel but I want to get back to working on it.

What do I need to get the flywheel off? I’ve looked for pullers but can’t seem to find anything that will do the trick. A photo or link to the appropriate tool would be great and much appreciated.

Even better, a press repair person in the Portland OR area. Anyone know of such a person they can recommend?

I either need to repair the press or scrap it and replace it with a different press. I’d much rather repair.

Thank you. Kevin.

V M Flywheel removal, havent played with one for 35 years, but following may help:- inspection (close) may reveal 2 or 3 holes (equidistant) for inserting bolts, from the rear of flywheel to accomodate substantial 2/3 prong very thick bridge plate, centered on the shaft, with extractor bolt wound up, and eventually shocked, with substantial copper hammer on bolt head, shear pressure is not enough on its own, second option, as above but with hydraulic puller, utilizing same 2/3 bolts, but even at 10/15 tons pressure, shock wave may still be needed!!! 3rd possibility flywheel may incorporate 2/3/4/ equidistant, substantial threaded holes to accomodate specialist puller (V M) maybe??? Hoping that my best shot may help. Good Luck Mick . NIL DESPERANDUM????? DONT SCRAP IT.

Thanks Mick, Monday I’ll be calling a place that rents hydraulic pullers.

There aren’t any holes for bolts or for pulling on either side of the flywheel, I have a very early V-36, serial #V-140. Maybe they didn’t think of that at the time my press was built. It looks like I need to find a puller that can reach across the ~20” diameter flywheel??

How much clearance is there between the flywheel and the main frame? Is the shaft/flywheel mating surface straight or tapered?

I have never been around this model, my opinion is just that.

If the flywheel is on a tapered seat then if you can get it to move just a little bit it will come off very easily. The steps I would try are as follows.
Block between the flywheel and the main frame/bearing area. Put nut back on shaft and bring it flush to end of shaft, making sure that there is still some clearance between nut and flywheel.
Taking a brass headed hammer, one to two pound, hit the nut hard and square, very square is important!!
The shock should move the shaft and the blocking will keep the flywheel from moving.

If not tapered, then plan B

PB Blaster/Kroil oil sprayed into shaft/flywheel over several weeks, then same steps as above.

Plan C would involve building a puller that would have arms that reached around the flywheel and pull from close to the flywheel hub. I would be very leery of putting much pressure on outside rim of flywheel, very easy to break.

If you would like to discuss this offline, send me an email. I have worked on and repaired many old pieces of industrial equipment over the past 30 plus years.

Marshall

to jazyrain

Shocking off an item like a flywheel is very common practice, but one needs to consider whether the shock will affect anything else. Some decades back, I needed to get the Pitman arm off the steering of a Chrysler Valiant. I used a heavy 2-leg puller, there was just room for the puller legs. Then I heated the legs of the puller, screwed it tight, waited for the puller legs to cool; worked like a charm.

A hydraulic puller will exert a very large force, possibly as much as, probably more than, exerted by the cooling legs of the ordinary puller I used.

Do not consider pulling with a puller anywhere except on the hub of a cast flywheel, those cast spokes will fail at a very very small pressure, it’s a matter of leverage.

We call it penetrating oil, I understand it is called by proprietary names in USA, very thin oil which penetrates into minute spaces, helps machinery like printing-press flywheels to separate from the shaft. Clean the surface well with no-residue solvents before re-assembly.

In this, my home-town, in earlier days, we would call on anyone to help; dunno if the same applies now. I had people call on me who were visiting friends near to where I lived, Saturday morning near mid day, no formal mechanics available.

Alan.

to Marshall Henderson

When using penetrating oil, I gently heat around the oil, which may heat any air pockets, which (air) will contract on cooling and pull the oil into the pocket.

At another town, a neighbour came to me; they had been trying to fit a Welsh plug into a hole, no success. [A Welsh plug looks like a small, very shallow cup.] I showed a way of measuring the plug, they had been sold the next size up; they bodgied-up the leak in the one they had removed, used that; problem solved. But next time they will probably put the old and the new items together, check whether it is the correct size.

I often take the old part to where I am trying to find something I need, helps me to explain what shape the gizmo should be. A description needing visualisation is often too difficult, for me and the shop assistant.

Alan.

V M 36 Flywheel Extraction, one little addition to Marshall,s and Alan,s advise, as always, a long time ago, when playing with and repairing Monotype Machines, if/when the camshaft pulleys had to be removed, (the free pulley was next to the main frame, the driving pulley was outboard and was difficult to extract, the original machines had spokes, but later models had complete dishes, consequently no pullers!!!) therefore variations of Marshall,s and Alan,s systems were brought into use with one small addition, I liberated from the Comp Room, 2 or three normal cornerstone quoins (with steel inserts as nuts, NOT aluminium) with the help of steel spacers, placed and wound up 2 quoins at 180 degrees between the inner pulley hub and the main frame, as tight as locking up a 32 page forme, for example, so that when I Belted, Smacked, Struck, Hammered, Tapped Gently etc etc, I had a certain amount of back pressure, as per Panel Beaters principles. i.e. a Dolly behind the work to transfer/absorb the shock. ONCE again DONT Scrap it, If/When MEIHLE, GOSS, DEXTER pick your Picture and Post They may coming looking to snatch your arm off, to acquire YOUR Machine!!!!!>????? Mick.

If it was my machine, I would use a very broad low temp flame around the hub area while trying to “oil” the joint.

The biggest problem is the mass of the flywheel when trying to heat the hub, the flywheel soaks up a massive amount of heat. Heat moves along the shaft and can effect other parts while the joint is coming up in temperature.

Having said that, I still would consider heating the hub, carefully!

Marshall

Thanks for the suggestions, I tried the heat, no luck. I tried calling Jack Beall Vertical Service, to ask their opinion, no return phone call yet. Still looking for a solution…

re Marshal Henderson’s suggestions:

There are many variations to shocking a flywheel off a shaft, the differences are linked to various ways which the flywheel is retained; a well-trained metal-worker should know how to tackle the task.

Lots of repair shops (for many things, not just printing presses) in Aust keep a “little notebook” which has in it the names of people who specialise in particular tasks; ask if anyone has heard of a drift, used to make shocking-off removal from shafts, but which reduces the risk of damaging the threaded end of the shaft. Re the little notebook, I would not be surprised if someone brought in an ornithorhynchus needing alignment of its paddles, they would be told where to go.

In this town, we had a man who ran a workshop where they tackled almost anything. He reduced the diameter of the worn hole through a casting by running an electric-arc welding bead around the outside; but he knew his metals and how they would react. Decades ago, I made the fit of a sintered-bronze bearing fit carrying a steel shaft better by running a layer of soft solder around the outside of the bearing, then reducing the solder to a film; it worked very well. I also cut threads on high-tensile-strength steel bolts.

Alan.

SOLUTION:

It took a blend of ideas:

A couple blocks of wood against the main frame, a large pry/breaker bar against the wood chunks and holding pressure on the flywheel. Back the flywheel retaining nut out until it’s just past flush with the shaft, hold pressure with the pry bar while smacking the nut with a 5 lb. sledge hammer. Popped right off, didn’t have to cuss at it or anything :)

Thanks for the prying idea Jack Beall, and to Marshall for the smack-it-with-a-hammer idea. No heat needed.