I wanted to put a power drawbar on the mill, but being a smaller Enco machine there is no provision for mounting one. Because of this, no one even makes a power unit for it.
I hate it when somebody says I CAN'T do something so..... I bought a Kurt mechanical Powerlock unit that is designed to fit a full sized Bridgeport mill. After a lot of measuring and "cypher'n", I sketched out a coupler to connect it to my little Enco mill. The head of the Bridgeport drawbar is quite a bit longer than what is on my machine, so I needed to mount the unit much higher to make it work. Thus the riser block design. I also had to drill & tap the bearing plate / brake housing on my machine to add some studs in order to attach the riser to it.
The 6-1/2" aluminum (or aluminium) round stock was turned on my lathe to the same diameter of the mill upper bearing/brake housing. I drilled the center hole for the drawbar to pass through, and drilled and tapped 1/4-20 holes for attaching the drawbar unit to the top. My original plan was to drill all the way through the riser and attach it with long hex-head cap screws, countersunk into the top of the riser. I didn't really like the thought of using the extra long bolts, so I decided on the shorter studs and lock nuts instead.
(Those are left over from a Honda Civic intake manifold actually.) lol.
In planning for installing the studs I removed the bearing plate from the mill to look for a good place to locate them, so that I didn't drill into anything "important".
After removing the spindle brake parts from the housing, I discovered that the bolt holes that hold the brake shoes in place were the same size and pitch of the studs that I already had!
So all I had to do was extend the holes already in the underside of housing, and thread the upper half of the now through holes. Then just screw the studs in the top.
I have a severe case of arthritis in one of my shoulders, and it is much nicer to just push a lever with one hand to install or remove collets etc., instead of having to reach overhead with a wrench to undo or tighten the drawbar.
