How To Check Cam Follower Bearings on a Portable Sawmill

Here are Wood-Mizer’s step by step instructions on how to check the cam follower bearings on your Wood-Mizer portable sawmill. Please note that sawmills with a cantilever head and dual rail design may look different but the process is still the same.

How To Check Cam Follower Bearings on a Portable Sawmill:

1. Start by removing the covers that are over the cam followers.

2. On the front side there will be one roller and two rollers on the back side by the operator’s station. Take a pry bar, stick it underneath the housing, pry up and remove the pressure off the roller, making sure that the bearing can spin.

Make sure there are no grooves on that roller, this would indicate that it is being smashed and is getting a lot of hours of use and that it will soon need to be replaced.

3. Now repeat step #2 on the two backside rollers.

During this process, if you find a roller that does not spin you will need a 15/16 inch wrench and a 3/8 Allen wrench to take the old cam roller out and replace it with a new one.

4. Next you will need to check the rollers on the bottom of your machine.

The outside of the saw head needs to be lowered onto something to alleviate pressure on the bottom rollers. We recommend using a rest pin.

5. Once your machine’s head is rested on something, lay down underneath your machine to once again confirm that the rollers spin and do not have any grooves. This process is the same as the top rollers in steps #1 through #3.

6. Once you have checked all the rollers and your cam follower covers have been reapplied, you will need to check your alignment procedure and saw head tilt, because rollers with grooves will affect the saw head tilt.

Make sure to contact Wood-Mizer if you have any questions.