Shopsmith Forums

My grandfather has been a walking Shopsmith ad since he bought one and all the attachments in 1994 (1994 Mark V 510) and now in his 70's, preparing for his possible death, I have been been chosen to be the new keeper of all his tools. The mans been a woodworker hobbyist his whole life and now he's passing the torch. Exxcceepptt he decided to take apart his headstock while I was working, forgot how he managed to get the belt off and now, despite everything I can think of, I can't see any way this belt managed to fit from pulley to pulley. It seems like the belt is to small, i'm literally at my whits end here and if i don't figure out how to get it back together I feel like this is gonna kill my poor old grandpa, he loves this shopsmith more than at least half his kids lol.

Before putting the belt back on, make sure the floating sheaves on both the motor shaft and the idler shaft move freely and are well oiled. I would also oil the button bearing in the end of the idler shaft. The SS uses a Reeves drive for the speed adjust. That means that the pulleys on the motor shaft and idler shaft change sizes based on the speed selected. To replace the belt, the sheaves are manually pulled apart and the belt placed in between them. The speed alignment will need to be preformed after assembly.

You may also want to watch Sawdust session 23 on Rebuilding the Drive Train. http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/SS_Arch ... _Index.htm

If you got the belt from shopsmith then they use to come with instructions, you might want to see if you can find them. I haven't purchased a belt in a while so I'm not sure if they still send them along but if not a call to them should bring you a copy or perhaps someone here has a copy to share.

Ed

http://www.shopsmithacademy.com/SS_Arch ... _Belts.htm

Is the Shopsmith Academy Video. It's older when video resolution was not as high as we are accustomed to today.

Look at the eccentric and drive assembly. Pay attention to the washer and screw that hold it in place and make sure the washer that covers the eccentric is a fender washer and covers the bearing face lip to prevent it from coming out.

Make sure that the Serpentine Belt as you referred to it (Poly-V) as named by Shopsmith, tracks vertical, that is: the splines line up directly and are not offset or it will bind.

The belt viewed from the top should be relatively centered with a few splines on either side.

Tension it as described in the video.

You may benefit from a large format exploded parts list that I put together some years back that shows the relationship of parts to each other.

Go to https://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/view ... 90#p185690 Scroll down the page and find the link to the Headstock Drawing 3.0.2

Mark V Headstock rev. 3.0.2 - Click that link, and within the post it links you to, download that PDF. It is reoriented to make the visibility of the assembly more understandable.

While you are there you will undoubtedly notice a link to My Google Drive where you will find the document on the main page titled Buying a Used Shopsmith V2.PDF. It will get you grounded on what you have and help make sense of the other forum entries here.

Equally, you will find a ton of other beneficial documents in the various folders under My Google Drive, (all free downloads)

In the Bearings folder you will find a Shopsmith Bearing Guide that has pictures of the various components (including where the belts go) and discusses the various changes through the years that might be present in yours, based on when it was made or perhaps upgraded through the years.

Once you understand it, the genius in the design that has endured 60 years, is the simplicity of how it works together to do what it does.

Everett

This help?