4 1/2 Head assembly.

After much gritting of my teeth and hammering away at the spindle, I finally got the cone off. the whole assembly had been soaked in PB Buster and wd40 for days before i was able to get anything apart in the first place, so it already had as much 'magic' oil as it could handle =) If you look at the inside of the cone on photo mark6.jpg below, that's how the whole thing looked before I started cleaning it .

That said, i've now got the whole headstock working again as intended, though i still need to re-thread the back end of the spindle where the threads are all mangled and mushed. I wont clutter the thread with photos, but here are links to the complete disassembly, the locations of all the marks on each piece, and the step by step re-assembly of the whole headstock. I'm sure that someone in the future will run into the same problems that I have, so hopefully if they're searching the internet this thread will help!

If people think I should, I can start a whole new thread that is just the disassembly and re-assembly of a barnes 4-1/2 headstock.

The disassembled (well mostly in this case) back gears
Put pictures in this evening have to go out.

The rest of the disassembled headstock, except for the frame itself

The mark on the inside of the casting of the back gear support

The mark on the change gear itself

The mark on the bearing support

The marks on the bushing and the tail screw bearing

The mark on the inside of the spindle gear

The mark on the pulley cone

Re-assembling the barnes 4-1/2 headstock after cleaning all the parts
Step 1: Attach the spindle lock-nut to the spindle gear.

Step 2: Slide the cone pulley against the gear

Step 3: Attach the bushing snug but not too tight to hold the cone in place.

Step 4: Place the frame on the rails.

Step 5: Place the bottom of the front bearing in the frame

Step 6: Feed the spindle through the rear of the frame and sit it in the bearing on the front.

Step 7: Start screwing in the rear bearing. Take note of the taper behind the bushing. You'll probably want to remove the lockdown nut so it doesnt get in the way.

http://www.tharkis.com/images/barnes...assembly07.jpg

Step 8: Screw the rear in untill it's snug, but not tight, against the taper on the spindle

Step 9: Screw down the lockdown nut so that the rear screw cant get loose

Step 10: Place the top bearing over the front of the spindle

Step 11: slide the back gears onto the back gear post, and attach it to the frame. At this point you'll want to adjust the position of the whole spindle relative to the back gear by using the rear screw to make sure that everything lines up and nothing rubs. Only after this will you want to attach the bearing hold to the frame.

Step 12+: Do stuff with change gears and whatnot that I cant do with mine because i dont have any =)

Thanks Justin for this very informative article.