1954 Gilmer with no clutch Recomendations?

pmateosian · Post by **pmateosian** » Tue Jan 05, 2010 11:25 pm

I discovered that the 1954 Greenie that I am working on does not have a clutch. Should I be worried and try to upgrade or just use it. The belt looks fine, but it does look like the drive pulley has spun on the shaft at some time in the past. Here is a picture:[ATTACH]7236[/ATTACH]

SDSSmith · Post by **SDSSmith** » Wed Jan 06, 2010 12:25 am

Besides the missing bearings, it looks like you are missing a snap ring. Is this in the process of being disassembled or is this how you found it?

bucksaw · Post by **bucksaw** » Wed Jan 06, 2010 8:23 pm

The reason for the clutch was to help reduce the chance of tearing up a belt if the main drive ever locked up and the motor kept turning. I believe the earliest Greenies did not have the clutch but it was quickly added.

mickyd · Post by **mickyd** » Wed Jan 06, 2010 9:23 pm

No clutch equals no secondary failure prevention mechanism is in place in the event of a sudden jam of the drive system. Only two possible outcomes that I can think of should it jam.

Gilmer drive belt most likely gets damaged or
Motor stalls and burns out if you don't shut it down right away

There may be more but that's all I can think of. Other members with more product knowledge would have to chime in here.

Are those issues to be concerned with? Depends on:

type of work your doing and the resulting probability that the drive system will jam
depth of your pocket, tolerance of a failure, or risk of being down for a period of time should you have to replace either a belt or motor

There are probably more than one Gilmer drive systems out there that has a clutch but it is frozen and they don't even know it, in effect, the same situation you KNOW you have. That's why a good disassembly and inspection as shown in this thread is a wise preventive measure.

Hopefully, this will help in what is ultimately your decision. If it were me, I wouldn't think twice about using it as is providing:

I had a spare belt or two on hand in the event that they are back ordered by ShopSmith.
I wasn't under any time deadline to complete a project while I hunt down parts (motor, drive belt) that I screwed up.

My two cents.

pmateosian · Post by **pmateosian** » Wed Jan 06, 2010 9:48 pm

Yes, I just pulled the bearings and snap ring.... Hey, it's a 1954 and was not in too terrible shape when I picked it up this November. The bearings were not bad but I bought new bearings anyway at the local NAPA auto parts store, and was planning on overhauling the clutch as depicted in one of the excellent posts on this site when I realized there is no clutch! It really is not a big job at all to take this thing completely apart so if I have to change a belt sometime in the future I will.

I was just wondering if the shaft is the same. In other words, if I found a used pulley with clutch could it go on this shaft?

-Paul

bucksaw · Post by **bucksaw** » Thu Jan 07, 2010 1:17 am

If you watch eBay you will see Gilmar drive shafts go for less than $30. Bill Mayo may have some in stock. You might pm him. I switched out both of my Gilmar Greenies to PolyV and sold the old Gilmars on eBay a while back. Search for Shopsmith.

billmayo · Post by **billmayo** » Thu Jan 07, 2010 4:10 am

bucksaw wrote:If you watch eBay you will see Gilmar drive shafts go for less than $30. Bill Mayo may have some in stock. You might pm him. I switched out both of my Gilmar Greenies to PolyV and sold the old Gilmars on eBay a while back. Search for Shopsmith.

I find that most Gilmer Clutches are frozen or the set screw is loose allowing the clutch assembly to freely spin on the Drive Sleeve shaft. The set screw should align with the flat (for the 4 groove drive hub) on the end of the Drive Sleeve shaft. If not, then the set screw has allowed the assembly to start moving (spinning) on the shaft.

I am able to only save (reuse) about half of the clutch discs from all the Gilmer clutches that I have disassembled. I have not found any source for the Gilmer Clutch discs as Shopsmith no longer has them available. I try to buy any Gilmer clutch (Gilmer Drive Sleeve Assembly) that are not over priced for the clutch discs. I have rebuilt and tested Gilmer Drive Sleeve Assembly (Gilmer Clutch) with new bearings.

The Gilmer Drive Sleeve shaft is the same on all Gilmer headstocks. The Poly-V Drive Sleeve shaft has the same spacing and snap ring locations as the Gilmer shaft. I have only switched one Gilmer shaft for a Poly-V shaft so the customer could keep the rebuilt Gilmer Clutch and use the double bearing Poly-V quill in his machine. Not a change I would recommend.