Shopsmith Forums

EDIT: I'm hijacking my own thread on a single issue to just post all of my motor disassembly woes and process in one place. Hope you all don't mind! Original below:

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I have read the guide for the AO Smith motor in the sticky, but I have a screw on the back of the shaft that I want to remove. It occurs to me that often times these screws are reverse threaded (like the nut on the other side), so does anyone know if this guy is a left or right threaded screw? I don't want to force it anymore and strip the screw.

It is a right hand threaded screw. All the centrifugal weights on the Shopsmith motors use right handed screws. This screw can be difficult to unscrew. I normally use a nail punch to start the unscrewing of the screw and use it to set the screw when installing the screw.

billmayo wrote:It is a right hand threaded screw. All the centrifugal weights on the Shopsmith motors use right handed screws. This screw can be difficult to unscrew. I normally use a nail punch to start the unscrewing of the screw and use it to set the screw when installing the screw.

Bill you're absolutely right it was tough! I wish I saw your advice before hand, but I got it off with a little bit of creativity:
I'm using a sheave I broke and vice to get enough leverage on the other side of the shaft and was able to slowly apply enough pressure to break the screw without stripping the head. A bit on the crazy side, but I'm still proud of it, haha!

After getting this guy apart, I can see a lot of rust damage. I'm really unsure of whether the damage is enough to eventually destroy the windings and if this motor is worth fixing or not. It does run, I ran it to test it, but still apprehensive that the windings will corrode soon and bite the dust.

A little back story on this shopsmith was that the owner kept it well until last winter here in Boston, he left it out under a tarp to get some room for antoher project in his garage with his son and well, it got covered in 10-20 feet of snow. So all the very extensive rust damage is fairly recent, or not, I can only guess. What do you guys think?

Double post! Not sure how this happened...move along!

The copper wires do not rust. Just be careful of touching or nicking the copper windings when cleaning the rust. I believe this is the best motor that Shopsmith had used until the PowerPro. It has a bigger rotor, internal fan, big bearings and winding wires are twice the size of all the other motors. It is also quite heavy. I used this cast iron motor in all my personal Shopsmiths along with a few spares on the shelve.

You should use an ohm meter to check the wire winding resistance. 6-8 ohms for the start windings and 1-2 ohms for the run windings and no short from the case to the windings.