You may ask, "Why tear the lathe completely down into parts just to remove the ways for grinding?"
I plan to move the whole machine into my basement shop and I have a wooden stairway. My wife thought she could save herself by buying an old house with a narrow wooden stairway. Ha!

In case you ever need to do such an insane thing, here are the component weights:
 

How obsessive! Total: 1340 lbs

Headstock, casting only Countershaft / speed changer Carriage with motor and slides Tailstock Taper attachment Leadscrew and stop rod Spindle Gearbox Control levers Carriage control box Coolant pump Dovetail way Bed, casting only Tray Electrical box Motor Doors Cabinet Fasteners Filth (removed)

75  60 115  40  20   7  23  70  10  10  25  35 230  95  43 140  42 295   5   4

I keep subtracting these weights from the estimated total of 1250, hoping to end up with nice small numbers for the bed and cabinet so I can roll them downstairs into my machine shop with a Yates appliance dolly.
Update: The actual total, nuts, bolts and everything, comes to 1340 lbs.

The pictures that follow are mostly taken in my garage where the forklift unloaded the machine.
I got a lot of help from the HLVH maintenance manual, but the HLV-BK model is different in many key areas.
Another key resource for advice and especially inspiration has been Kurt Bjorn, who restored his HLV machine.

Disassembly Steps:

These are somewhat disorgainized notes I copied from my notebook. They are probably too detailed for anyone with common sense, but I wanted to remember the order of the steps as well as the location of some obscure fasteners.

• Remove the carriage control box.
• Remove the lead screw taper pin.
• Remove lead screw bracket.
• Engage half nut and use carriage crank to pull out lead screw 1/2".
• Disengage half nut and carefully pull out the lead screw.
• Remove carriage motor and catch the transmission fluid in a pan.
• Crank the carriage toward the tailstock end until the rack disengages the pinion.
• Remove the carriage gib. It has two large set screws.
• Slide the carriage off the tailstock end.

• Remove speed control crank wheel and open the cabinet.
• Remove lock nut on the motor platform elevation screw.
• Tilt up the front edge of the motor platform and slip off the belt.
• Put the speed control crank wheel back on and use it to raise the countershaft and loosen the spindle belt.

View into motor cabinet from front. Belt has been removed.

• Remove the collet closer.
• Remove spiral snap ring that holds spindle hand wheel in place.
• The hand wheel is forced onto a shallow taper:

Drive in two wooden carpenter's taper shims on each side of hand wheel.
Tap on the shims to pry off the hand wheel. There is a compressed wave washer behind the hand wheel.
When it comes loose, it may go flying off if you don't hold onto it while tapping the shims.
• Remove wave washer and backing washer.
• Remove headstock back cover.
• Undo lock screws and taper set screws underneath on the spindle pulley

 

 
 
 
 

The pulley, shown on the left in the view below, is attached to a carrier cylinder. Both have lock screws on top of set screws with long tapered ends. The lock screws have the hex hole cut all the way through. Be careful not to insert the wrench too deep so it engages the actual set screw before you have removed the lock screw on top. When the set screws are out, you should be able to slide the pulley back toward the tailstock end and lift off the belt. The gnarled hole on the right is for a pin spanner used to retain the spindle if you need to undo the front or rear ball bearing preload/retaining rings.


Pulley and carrier cylinder




• Remove three cap screws that hold the bearing retainer at the spindle nose.
• Put the Thread/Feed knob in the Thread position. This is important because you are going to bash out the spindle and you want the spindle gear to pass through the teeth of the mating gearbox gear rather than destroying it if the teeth don't happen to mesh.
• Using a clean rawhide mallet or a soft wood block, gently tap on the spindle end. The front bearings will start to emerge from the headstock front. As soon as they are clear, clean their top surfaces with solvent and mark the upper edge so you can replace them in the same orientation. This may be superstition, but Hardinge recommends this step.
• Reach in and lift the belt so the spindle doesn't get hung up while sliding out.
• Continue tapping on the spindle until the bearings are free, then pull it out the front.
• Let the belt drop down into the cabinet.
• I suggest you reassemble the pulley on the spindle before you forget how things go together. You can rotate and slide the pulley and cylinder while looking down through the set screw holes to get the taper holes in the spindle lined up.

 

 
 








Overall view of the spindle

Spindle front showing, left to right, the preload ring, two ball bearings, the spindle nose retaining ring, the spindle end with Hardinge taper.
 

Spindle rear showing, left to right, gearbox drive gear (it is in one piece with the ring that has the set screw hole), bearing retaining ring, rear ball bearing.

Headstock nose after spindle removal

The current state of the disassembled machine.

• If your machine has been painted by persons differently-ambitioned, carefully cut through the seams between the headstock, gearbox and bed.
• On the rear of the headstock near the base remove the two set screws. Each screw is topped by a locking screw.
• The headstock is held onto the dovetail way by 2 large cap screws that go up through the end of the dovetail way and through the dovetail way segment at the inside rear of the headstock. You can't see these cap screws but they are easy to feel on the under side of the way ends.
• To remove these, a 3/8 hex wrench is required and there's not much room to apply the torque. I intended to move my machine down a flight of stairs, so I removed the counter shaft assembly entirely. This makes it easy to reach the headstock bolts from below with a long socket extension and an Allen cap socket. If you have the strength of a gorilla and a 4" socket wrench with a 3/8 Allen socket, you might be able to get them loose from above.
• If you have no paint seal, very little force is required to slide the headstock forward and off the tailstock end of the machine.

 

 
 







View into the headstock from below with the counter shaft speed control removed.
The two cap screws that hold the headstock are easy to see:
 


The counter shaft speed control unit comes out easily in one piece. It weighs 60 pounds as shown.
 


The headstock shifted forward. The cap bolts are standing on the way surfaces.
 


Closer view of dovetail under headstock front:
 


Dovetail segment at rear of headstock

• Remove the rear cover plate and undo the two set screws that hold the shifter yoke in place on its shaft.
• On the bottom edge of the gearbox you will see a nut with a protruding pin. Tighten this nut to extract an alignment dowel.
• Using a real, correctly sized pin spanner, remove the front bearing retaining ring on the lead screw drive stub.
• The gearbox is held by four cap screws. Two are on the outside bottom edge. Remove these first.
• Prop up the gear box with two stacked wood 2x4 segments.
• The upper cap screws are on the inside upper edge. Their are two access holes for these inside the rear gear case cover door. To remove them, use a very long T-handle hex wrench or a small socket wrench with long extension and a hex socket.
• Pull off the gear box. Try twisting slightly to break any paint seal against the rear of the bed. I used a plastic dead-blow hammer to gently tap on the stub of the lead screw drive. The leadscrew drive shaft will pull all the way out with the gear box. The shifter yoke shaft is supposed to stay engaged with the left/right lever pivot and pull out of the gear case. I found I could shift the gear box on the way off and disengage the shaft from the lever so it stays in the gear box.

Removing the control levers:

• Remove the nuts from the lever shafts on the back side of the bed.
• Remove the cotter pin from the High/Low/Off lever crank where it engages the rod from the drum switch.
• Slide out the High/Low/Off shaft from the front while keeping track of all the pieces that are stacked on the shaft. There are about 20 spacers, shims and collars in addition to the crank itself. Slide them off one at a time and keep them in order. As soon as the shaft is out, stack all the pieces back on the shaft, including the pivot bushing inside the rear hole in the bed. Replace the nut and washer on the end.
• The stop rod shaft has a detent pin and spring held by a set screw on the front side of the bed. Remove these and shift the lever far over so the crank can be disengaged from the shaft.
• Slide out the Left/Right shift lever keeping track of all the parts.
• Note: where the lever cranks engage the shafts, they are cut away for a square nut that fits into the shaft. This square "nut" simply slides onto a pivot and will fall off easily when you disengage it from the shaft.
• Pull out the stop rod shaft.
• Remove the detent spring, pin and lock screw so they don't fall out and get lost.

 


Bed with gearbox and levers removed
 


Rear view without gear box

• Remove the cap screws on the short dovetail segment and gently pry up evenly on both sides. The two taper pins come off with the segment because their large ends are at the top. Push them out from below to remove.
• Remove the cap screws on the rear of the main dovetail way.
• Remove all the cap screws visible on the under side of the front edge of the way.
• Undo the spring loaded mounting nuts that hold the bed on the cabinet. There are three of these: one under the foot of the bed and two at the headstock ends.
• Using 2x4 segments creatively, pry and block up the bed.
• Remove the 3 mounting studs keeping careful track of the leveling shims for each.
• You can now roll over the bed 90 degrees to access the cap screws inside the bed.
• Undo the capscrews inside the bed. See photo below.
• Pry the dovetail way off the dowels at each end. These are simple straight dowels, not taper pins. If they come off with the way, simply push them out.

At this point, I found a great big stainless steel shim the size of the whole dovetail way underneath. It measured 0.006. A similar shim was under the headstock dovetail segment. Someone had rebuilt the lathe before and removed 0.006 from the top of the way. To compensate for the backward shift of the tailstock, they added 0.003 shims under each pad. This, however, was incorrect. A little arithmetic shows that the tailstock would be expected to shift: h/sqrt(3.0) where h is the amount removed from the top. For h = 0.006 we get a shift of 0.00346. By using a shim of 0.003 instead, the last rebuilder gave the machine a permanent taper offset of 0.00046.  This will cause a 0.001" shift in diameter for all work done between centers.
 
 




Bed rolled over

"Give me enough two by fours and I will move the Earth" - Greek philosopher
 


Underside of bed
 


Cap screws inside the bed
 


Bed with the dovetail way removed
 


Bed under the way at headstock end
 


Shim for dovetail segment and tailstock pads
 


Dovetail ways and shims.
 


Weighing the bed on the bathroom scale.
The lathe was made the year I was born and it weighs...

Disassembling the cabinet
 

• Remove the bed. Explain to your wife that you need a "family" engine hoist. Actually, two people can lift it easily.
• The tray and coolant sump are welded in one piece.  Five bolts attach this assembly to the cabinet.
• Remove the electrical box:
• Remove the switch control arm that attached to the Stop/Low/High lever.
• Take notes on the wire labels from the motor to the drum switch. Then remove the wires.
• Remove all the bolts that attach the electrical box to the cabinet and remove the whole box.
• Detach the cable retaining nut on the inside of the cabinet and pull out the wires that went to the drum switch.
• The motor and pivoting platform may be removed together:
• Use wooden blocks to support the motor platform.
• Remove the tilt adjuster nut and screw.
• Remove the pivot bracket bolts on the back of the cabinent. The brackets slip off the pivot pins that remain attached to the platform.
• The entire motor, brake & platform assembly may now be removed through the back opening of the cabinet:
• Rotate the platform 90 degrees around the vertical axis, then tip it up and out the back opening.
• Remove two cables that enter the cabinet from the electrical box: one for the spindle motor and one for the carriage.
• Remove the two cabinet doors.
• Remove the collet rack.

Cabinet top before cleaning and painting