While you’re at it, extend the filament hole up to the hobbed gear… could be a better solution for printing ninjaflex. 
Ok, I found what I am pretty sure is the TAZ 5 Hex Extruder Body and have modified it like before. I have made it two parts so that it is easily printable. There is the extruder body and the spacer. The top mount is designed to mount to the existing top mount bolt so you will need to get a longer bolt to try this.
I have also taken a swing at @kcchen’s request. I can not confirm the printability of the filament hole extension.
I have attached the STL’s if anyone wants to give it a shot. I am out of town next week, but will give it a try when I get back and let you all know how it works.
Extended_Filament_Tup.stl (1.09 MB)
Extruder - Spacer.stl (43.6 KB)
Strengthened_Extruder.stl (1.05 MB)
Nice! I don’t have any 3mm ninjaflex, but I’ll print the extruders. Just go a few E3D-V6 hotends over the weekend
@wantmys2000 thanks for throwing the files up. I’ll give it a try so long as I can find a long enough bolt.@kcchen_00 what mounting plate are you using for your E3D nozzles?
McMaster-Carr is a good source for any hardware. They pretty much have everything and ship fast (in the USA)
What should we use to print this? ABS? Perhaps polycarbonate?
FYI, you need a M3x60 bolt for the top bolt. My print finished but I only have a M3x50. 
Guess I will give it a try after I get back in town!
Thanks!
Steven
Got my hardened rods and linear bearings today. Plan on installing then later tonight.
Got everything installed. The actual install was very simple. Had a bit of binding with the z axis initially but quickly remedied that. One of the Y-axis bearing had 2 of the ball bearing fall out during install, couldn’t find them so installed without. I can definitely hear them missing… 
Issue i am having now is re-leveling the build plate. The front right corner of the aluminum plate is about 1mm higher than the other three now and the spring on the build plate has to be almost fully compressed to level the plate. I’ve tried reseating the cross rails of the y-axis to the main chassis, raised and lowered the z endstop trying to balance it out. It seems to be working, but the aluminum plate definitely isn’t level.
Just did my bed level test print and here are the results. Stl is 25 20x20x.3 mm squares. Hopefully you can zoom and see the results
Starting upper left and going right. Top number is place on matrix, bottom number is thickness.
A subsequent calibration and reprint has the delta in thickness at 100 microns. I think it’s just the build plate not being level.
@discojon
Could it be possible that the Al plate got bent? A machinist level is about $100 and it could help you get it straight again.
Had a bit of binding with the z axis initially but quickly remedied that.
How? I keep the x axis set screws loose and run the z axis all the way up and down twice–takes a while so I’m hoping you have something better.
I recently went through my TAZ and repacked the bearings with grease as they had started to make some noise after about 200 hours on the y axis and 300 hours on the x axis. I did not do any lubricating when I originally did the install so I didn’t think it would be long before I would have to do some preventative maintenance work. I packed my bearings with petroleum jelly as a lubricant and they have quieted down again. When working the grease in I noticed a little bit of the original grease was already pretty dark.
I’m currently trying to put together a maintenance manual that is a little more elaborate than what LulzBot offers. Understanding that a fair amount of people on the forum have done things like the bearing modification and are now printing at higher accelerations there is probably a bigger need to pay close attention to the machine. I’m thinking of making an hour meter out of an Attiny 85 and an LCD so I can better estimate total uptime and runtime.
I don’t think so, but i guess anything is possible. I had the bed laying upside down on my lap while changing the bearings out. I feel like it may torsional stress in the y-axis carriage. I had it sitting on the desk detached from the printer and it not all 3 feet were firmly sitting on desk, had a slight rock to it.
First time i attempted to move z axis, binding. Killed power, loosened left side rod set screws and allowed the mount to reset itself. Turned power back on and z worked just fine.
I printed and installed the new Extruder body and it works very well.
The X carriage is now solid as a rock and the only flex that still exists is in the X rods themselves. I posted the STLs and STEP file up on Thingiverse at http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:755184. In the thingiverse description I also include a link to the Onshape original models.
@lulzbot, I think I used the proper license on the Thingiverse model to keep in step with the TAZ, if not please let me know and I will change it.
I have included some before and after pictures to show the difference. These were all printed at 100mm/sec at 1500mm/sec2 acceleration in HIPS. I generally hate HIPS but it is cheap for these kinds of tests. After I was done testing I print the part in ABS and it was perfect.
I am now very happy with the TAZ and the print quality and speed I am getting out of it. I have not played with the other model with the filament tube extension as I already have a flexistruder, but if someone tries it I would be interested to know how it works.
Thanks!
Steven
You know it would be very very easy to add another xrod out in front of the extruder, perhaps even 12 or 15mm dia and simply take away the cantilever that causes a rotation about the x axis. This is my next project.
I have a TAZ 4 that I upgraded to a TAZ5 (hotend and bed). I purchased the Hardened Linear Shaft and the LMU10 Linear Bushings from Misumi, but have not installed them yet. I read in some of the post that these Bushings have caused some problems with Harmonic in the prints and they are loud. The people on this post who have installed these bushing, are you still happy with them and are they lasting.
Also tmorris9 found some bearings from PCB (pacific bearing) FJC10, that he was going to test and report back on. I have been trying to locate these bearing and can find them. tmorris9 or anyone who has found these, would you send me a link to there website and where the bearing are located. Is anyone other than tmorris9 using these bearing and what do you think of them. Are they better than the orginal TAZ bearing and the LMU10 bushings.
Thanks for your response.
I like the upgrade. It’s really cut down on maintenance and its helped the accuracy of my machine. I’ve only noticed a little bit of vibration with the bed but that was eliminated after about a month of use. Most of the harmonics of my machine come from flex of the entire system, unavoidable.
Brew4You - you did the hardened shafts and the linear bearings, right?
I’d be interested to hear how the hardned shaft and linear bearings compare to the teflon FJC10 bearing mentioned above, in terms of noise, longevity, and print life.
Yeah I haven’t had any issues with harmonic ripple due to the bearing and shaft upgrade. You have to do this upgrade if you want good prints. Once I got my Esteps finally correct the finish on my parts is perfect. I also did the extruder upgrade and I highly recommend it. It makes the assembly a lot more rigid and it’s easy to do.
Upgraded to my removable bed system, enclosure, bearings and shafts, stiffened extruder, a different method of determining esteps (did it by trial and error tweaking esteps and printing out thin parts until the top surface was perfect, while making sure all other variable effecting extruder flow were correct), added .3mm of coasting in the print settings in S3D and bingo perfect prints.
Whew that was hard. The Taz 5 can be a good printer but it requires a lot of open source thinking.
Just ordered 3 12mm x 515 long hardened steel shafts, 6 linear bearings from Misumi.
I am going to 12mm on the x-axis and adding another shaft in front of the extruder. I’ve had it with the X axis.
I ordered 515 instead of 500 because that’s what Mangrove is using (next Taz). So if it all goes to hell on me I can always punt and print the mangrove parts and go that route.