Hyundai-Kia VX500 Spindle Repair

The Hyundai-Kia VX500 is a CNC vertical machining center.  It comes equipped with a grease lubricated and belt driven spindle that is capable of running up to 10,000 rpm.

CHALLENGE

This Hyundai-Kia VX500 spindle’s bearings felt very rough when rotated by hand in assembly incoming. Coolant contamination was found throughout the spindle interior upon disassembly. When the #4 rear bearing failed, the rolling element cage was destroyed and the debris had migrated to the other three bearings. We removed bearings with steel balls from this spindle, but the decision was made to upgrade to bearings with ceramic balls as removed from (and replaced in) the customer’s other identical spindles. The tooling taper ID was worn with poor and extremely uneven tool contact. The spindle-side half of the rotary union was in good condition, however we recommend replacement of the entire union as best PM practice. We observed no significant dimensional deviations on the bearing journals, bearing shoulders, or in the housing bores.

SOLUTION

The following actions were performed on this Hyundai-Kia VX500 spindle:

• Clean all parts of the spindle
• Replace all bolts, o-rings, and gripper balls
• Replace steel bearings with ceramic bearings
• Grind, chrome plate, and finish grind the tooling taper ID

RESULT

After reassembly of all components, adjusting bearing preload, and undergoing break-in and testing procedures, this spindle passed our final quality inspection before being returned to our customer with a 1-year warranty.