JPG40504 wrote:The unknown here is why it is loose to the point of DANGLING????It is not tight enough to stall the motor or smoke the belt.
We do not know if it is caught in the upper sheaves.
We also do not know if the motor was smoking or the belt was smoking. If I were looking at it but not in person I would make the assumption that the motor was damaged and bid accordingly. If it turns out that the motor is OK then that would be a bonus.
We do know that all such devices operate on smoke and only have a certain amount of smoke in them from the factory. Once that smoke all leaks out that the device will cease to work.
As I look at the motor pulley in the picture I would consider that it is likely that the sheave is pushed out on the shaft and stuck from sitting. Then the seller likely turned the speed control (hopefully while turning the spindle by hand) and opened the upper sheaves making the belt quite loose.
The motor smoking may well have come from the centrifugal motor starter switch failing to make contact due to corrosion from sitting in a damp environment. The damp environment being indicated by the general rust but more so by the rust on the underside of the way tubes indicating that some condensation was heavy enough to collect under them as drops. A motor can hum a few seconds and still be OK but if it made smoke I wouldn't expect it to still be good. Then again a greenie motor on Ebay would make a cheap cure.